The Maelstrom and the Chestnut
by RhulainTheCheetahwolf
Summary: Naruto wakes up to find an egg in his bed, and makes a friend of a lifetime. "Vee!" "SO CUTE!" Maturing-Naruto Rated T for swear words.
1. Prolouge

Yes! My first Naruto story is being made, and its a crossover too. It take a long while to write but its a joy to write.

Legend: "Talking"

'Thinking'

* * *

The Maelstrom and the Chestnut

Prologue

"Naruto, what am I going to do with you?"

Upon his chair sat the 'Professor', Sandaime Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi, a man of wisdom and good leadership that's shown with his whitening balding hair and weathered skin. The red and white robes on him individualize him as the leader of the hidden ninja village of the leaves, Konoha. The authority he held was apparent in his firm wizened eyes and slight frown but in presence was that of a kind grandfather to those he cherished of his village. One of those precious ones sat in front of his desk; head down like he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"This is the fifth time this week that you have been brought to my office for a prank of yours and, don't you dare comment, it's starting to get old."

A snort escaped from the little prankster but obeyed on not commenting. The boy was more than six years old with tanned skin, a head of sunshine yellow hair and mischievous wide blue eyes. His clothes were dulled colors of a blue t-shirt with an orange swirl in the middle and beige shorts, and on his feet were worn and slightly too big sandals. A sheepish smile came on the boys face, whisker marks graces his cheeks to make him look like a smiling cat. His embarrassed laugh filled the office.

"Haha. Sorry Jiji, I don't mean to waste your time," said Naruto, ignoring the stern look from his grandfather-figure for his informal title, but Sarutobi didn't correcting him, he liked being called something other than Hokage. Then when Naruto made a semi serious face Sarutobi had to retrain himself from laughing aloud. "But that guy deserved it!"

"By having his hair dyed green?"

"I'll wash off…sometime."

"And having him walk around the village, on market day, without realizing he had a hole in his pants-"

"With his butt hanging out for everyone to see! HAHAHA!"

"NARUTO UZUMAKI!"

Snapping his mouth shut, Naruto repositioned himself back on his chair. Well, the guy did deserve it for not being fair on selling food to him and others, that vender sold apples full of worms, hidden rotten oranges and tripling the prices. He was doing the village a favor for humiliating the vender to close his stall. Naruto heard the 'old man' sigh and looked to see him rub the bridge of his nose before looking back at the boy with a stern face again.

"These pranks of yours are getting out of hand. You are just starting to go into the academy to learn to be a shinobi so you should be thinking about more on learning to be one. You want to become Hokage, right?"

"Yeah!"

"Then please at least, think of learning to be one then on all these pranks."

Naruto pouted, he enjoyed pranks, when he wasn't caught. "The white mask people thought it was funny," he murmured.

The Sandaime looked at him flatly, "Only after you were caught and your victim was out of earshot." Though he had to admit, the incident was hilarious and he inwardly praised the boy for bringing smiles to his face and to those around him, the ANBU for one. He cleared his throat and held up a list in his hands. "Anyway, these will be your fitting punishments." He ignored the complaining groan and continued. "First you are to clean the lounge of the tower, restrooms included." The boy cringed. "Then help the secretary organize the files, then help in the kitchens, and-"

"Uh, Hokage-sama?" the boy cut him off, but it wasn't the interruption that stopped Sarutobi but how Naruto addressed him. The boy always called him 'old man' or 'grandpa' as his own way of respect to him but when the blonde address' him as 'Lord Hokage' like the rest of the village, it meant that Naruto was serious about something. He looked up from his paper to see Naruto with his head down, a faint blush on his cheeks, and his hands were across his abdomen with two right fingers smoothing an area on his left hand. The sandaime placed the paper on his desk and leaned toward the boy.

"Yes, Naruto?"

Blue eyes looked at him nervously, "Um, I don't think I can help with the 'ore', 'oro', 'orga'-"

"Or-gan-ize-ing," Sarutobi helped.

"Yeah that whatever it means. I can't help there."

"Why?" A gray eyebrow rose at him.

"Well it has lots and lots of words and I…" the blonde mumbled the rest.

"Pardon?"

Naruto took a deep breath and answered clearly but shamefully, "I can't read sir."

For a moment he looked at the boy silently. 'Can't read, he's six, he should at least have learned spelling and make small sentences, but…wait…did he call me sir? He's not joking.' The face of a concerned old man faced Naruto.

"Surly you must have been taught with the other class."

Naruto worried his bottom lip with his teeth, "The teacher always forces me away from them and has me do classroom chores and every time I ask a question the teacher ignores me, or puts me on timeout." He looks down as specks of tears threaten to leave his eyes. 'Why is it always me?'

* * *

He had to strain his ears to hear the sad mumble, but he heard it. Sarutobi sighed, that one question, he knew went through the boys head ever since he was born. The third Hokage knew way, six years ago a great demon, Kyuubi the 9 tailed fox attacked the village causing chaos, destruction, and death in its wake. The creature over powered the shinobi and with every swing of its tails lives were lost. Yet his successor the Yondaime Hokage had a solution but at a price; at the cost of his soul he sealed the soul and chakra of the fox into an infant. In his final moments he wished for the child to be seen as a hero for containing the fox, but it was not to be. Grief, fear, and anger drove to hate from the villagers and shinobi toward the baby. From the moment he could crawl the child knew nothing but the hate from the village for a crime he never committed and treated as if he didn't exist.

That boy sat before the Sandaime, still looking down at his hands not letting his tears fall. The old man sighed, silently thinking of the situation. He still had to give him his punishments for his pranks, but he was concerned for Naruto's education. He was disappointed that the village made the blonde a pariah than a hero and the boy always was a ball of sunshine, a contagious smile and laugh that brightened anyone's heart, yet no one ever sees this, just the boy that holds the fox. This lead to Naruto living alone in an apartment, lack of education and playing pranks anywhere and everywhere to let them know he existed. Sarutobi was the leader, but he can't always help the boy when he has to worry about the prosperity and safety of the village, but he did what he could and that would mean he'll help the boy learn more; he'll first have to get him with a different teacher. Maybe Naruto will have a more positive motivation read.

"I don't see what's so great to read, it's boring."

Scratch that.

Sarutobi rubbed his face with his hands as he spoke to the boy again. "Reading is important so you can understand how things work-"

"I can learn by 'exi', 'exb' by the stuff I do."

"Learn to understand the big words and to give reports to your team or me-"

"But you hate looking at those; I hear you whine about them all the time."

The old man gave him an annoyed look. "I don't whine, I complain, but that's beside the point. Think of all the stories you could read, you have a big imagination that can be inspired by them."

"But it takes too long to read."

"Then maybe a sort of book with pictures you could-!" Naruto was starting to argue again, as the Hokage rubbed his chin in thought, when the old man's eyes lit up at a sudden idea. His robed arm shot up his hand in summon.

"Cat!"

To Naruto's awe a figure melted through the floorboards into a kneeling position on the left side of the desk. The figure was a woman with shoulder length lavender hair and wore the regalia of the ANBU guard: black tight sleeveless shirt under the white light torso armor, long black glove covered by armored arm bands and hand guards, black pants tied at the leg but long belted shinobi sandals, a sword secured to her back, the inter-swirled tattoo symbol of the ANBU on her left shoulder, and upon her face was a white mask of a cat with blue swirling whiskers. Naruto sort of remembered the cat masked lady, for she took care of him when he was little, there were others but he only remembered her and one with a dog mask who did these awesome ball tricks to make him smile, and if he remembered right he had another mask under his mask and the tiny blond would always try to get it off, much the dog masked man's amusement. He hadn't seen either of them in a long time. Further thoughts were interrupted by the firm voice of the arrived ANBU.

"Hai, Hokage-sama?"

"Cat could you please go to my estate to my main office and look under the desk? You'll find a box of old, worn books; look for one that is yellow and blue. It'll have a picture on the cover that looks like…" The Hokage paused to think of a description. "Like a big yellow mouse with red cheeks and a zigzag tail." He motioned with his hand to describe the tail. The ANBU took a moment to take in the command and description or she may think the old man was going senile; Naruto couldn't tell. Then she bowed her head.

"Hai, be back in a moment."

The she disappeared in a 'poof' and smoke was left where she had been.

"Cool," breathed Naruto as he saw the ANBU lady leave. Now he really wanted to be a ninja so he could learn that.

"Now while we wait I can give you the rest of your punishment, including no ramen for a week."

Naruto groaned load. 'I thought the old man forgot about that. My Ramen!'

* * *

Five minutes had passed of terrible punishment giving when the hokage paused then looked to his left side of the desk. Naruto, hearing the silence looked up to see Cat in his sights. He startled a bit at her sudden appearance, and nearly fell from his chair. He pouted and blew out his cheeks when he heard the old man chuckle softly and knew somehow that the ANBU lady was smirking under that mask. He looked at her hands and saw was a worn book, like one of those big novel ones, of yellow and blue covering and just as the old man said the picture was of some yellow mouse red cheeks, small black eyes, a cute smile, brownish markings on its back, black tipped ears and the middle of the zigzag tail behind it. Naruto was looking at the cover that the ANBU presented it to the Hokage.

"Here it is Hokage-sama."

"Thank you Cat. Can you give it to Naruto, please?"

As Cat presented Naruto the book he stared at it for a bit then took it from her hands with a soft "Thank you" and looked closer at the cover. He saw words of the title but he couldn't understand them. He looked back up at the Hokage.

"What's this?"

The old man smiled at him. "I had this when I was your age from my grandfather that helped motivate me to read more."

"How? It looks like one of those 'dich', 'dicka', 'dir'-"

"Dic-tion-ary," replied Cat.

"Thank you, Cat," smiled the hokage.

"Yes, thank you Cat-san," Naruto mimicked softly, his cheeks turning rosy. He looked at the book again. "I still don't get it."

"The size and cover don't tell all, you have to look at the pages within," answered the wise Hokage.

Still doubtful, Naruto opened the book's top covering and some pages parted to reveal something that made his eyes widen, sitting in his chair straighter and exclaim in his loudest cry of "WOAH!";The sound made the hokage check if he still had his hearing. There on a page he saw an animal of some kind, and a cool looking one at that.

The main color was a darkened blue, it's body was an oval shape with a white belly and spots near its fierce looking eyes, two tall dorsal fins near the tail, on each side of its body were huge wing-like pectoral with claws on the ends with red markings on top of both, and its tail looked like it split into four long bands. It must be huge because the human picture next to it was small.(1)

'It like one of those animals Yukizu-sensei showed the class when I was in the back. What was it called…Oh yeah a 'whale', but it's doesn't look like the picture she showed. Are there more?' Naruto wondered as he turned page after page, back and forth through the book of so many different creatures: a big green dragon(2), cloud birds flying(3), small dogs breathing fire, bugs of every size, and even…gulp…ghosts, but they were still so cool. More and more came up on every page he saw; creatures that made the ground break, others made blizzards and make objects fly around. What are these cool, awesome animals? Are they real? Naruto was so enthralled in the book as his smile became bigger and his feet swung back and forth happily under his chair.

* * *

Hiruzen smiled gratefully as he watched that the blonde was practically jumping in his chair. He remembered that book from when his grandfather gave it to him. The creatures, he believed were based on legends from old times to maybe before the tailed demons, 'bijuu', appeared. Now that he thought about it, his senseis, the previous Hokages before him, were real believers of their existence. His friends however just passed it as fiction and even he, as e grew older and more responsibilities. By the Konoha-Iwa war he had completely forgotten about it after he put it in that box. He hadn't thought of it until he found out about Naruto's lack of education. When he had thought of books and scrolls Naruto might read, he racked his brain for something until the book came to his mind. He didn't know if it was proof his old brain cells were still working or just some luck.

Yet he could have sworn that the idea was placed in his head from an outside force.

'But it still could be my old mind playing tricks,' thought Sarutobi as he looked back at Naruto, almost nearly standing on his chair. Hiruzen smiled at the boy. 'Whatever the reason, the result is now that Naruto has something to get him focused to read.'

Judging by his stature the Hokage prepared himself for a 'Naruto Burst', as he called it, right…about………………….now!

'WHAT ARE THEY? THEY'RE SO COOL! DO THEY HAVE A NAME? CAN THEY REALLY DO THIS STUFF? ARE THEY REAL? PLEASE JIJI! TELL ME, TELL ME, TELL ME, TELL ME PLEASE!"

He had prepared for the outburst but not having Naruto jump on his desk and shove the open book to his face. The page was of a giant blue bug with a t shaped horn on its head(4). He faintly heard a soft giggle from the ANBU next to him she took the boy from the desk back to his chair. Naruto blushed a bit when he realized his action and smiled sheepishly at the old man with his hand behind his head.

"Hee,hee, sorry Hokage-jiji," Naruto apologized. The hokage couldn't help but smile back, he was somewhat relieved Naruto went back to his own honorifics. The boy looked back at the pages again, flipping through the pictures. "They're just so cool. They're real, right? Are they called something?" Naruto looked back at the hokage expecting his answer but the old man had something else in mind.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, Naruto," said the hokage as he leaned back into his chair, his face looking like a grandfather telling a child that he couldn't have a cookie. As predicted the blonde went from wide-eyed to a scowl, he puffed his cheeks and straighten in his chair.

"Why Not?" he exclaimed angrily.

The old man raised a hand to calm the boy, and to secretly check his hearing. "Now, Naruto I can't tell you what they are. Where's the challenge then?"

The boy raised an eyebrow, "Huh, a what?"

"A challenge Naruto is something that others will get you to do the find out something or win for the fun of it," explained the Hokage as he pointed at the book in Naruto's lap. "My challenge to you Naruto is to read this whole book and when you finish it not only will it help you to read better, it'll also help you learn the shinobi scrolls and books to be one. Thus another step won to be Hokage".

Naruto looked down at the book again, looking thoughtful. He wanted to know what these animals are, but he had to find out himself? But reading looked boring from what the other side of the class but then he thought of what of what the old man telling him of things he could get from it to be Hokage. If this 'chall-enge' can do that for him then what should stop him? He never backed down from anything Kiba Inuzuka bet him to do so he won't with this. He won't back down from this.

Then the Hokage sealed the deal.

"Complete this whole book Naruto and I'll treat you ramen for a week."

Naruto straightened sharply looking back to the amused old man with a determined face, his eyes focused ahead. His smile only added on the confidence he was building.

"No sweat. I'll get this reading down before I be a ninja." He stood from his chair to point at the smiling Hokage. "And before you know it I'll be wearing that hat Hokage-oji-sama, you just wait."

Sarutobi smiled at that and moved to lean forward to his desk. "Alright then, Naruto. Tomorrow I'll have someone come to help you with the first steps, then after you learn that you can go on your own if you wish." Then he witnessed something very rare; something even he hardly sees. The blonde boy's eyes started to water, and there on the boy's face was a small genuine smile. For this was his first true gift given to him like any normal boy. This smile of gratitude reminded Hiruzen of another smile, a smile from a father leaving his child and a promise to him to take care of this child. Though Sarutobi always felt he never really had done enough but this smile alone lifted his heart and drove him further to give this boy the happiness he deserved. The boy bowed to him then came up again with a wide smile.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama."

With a nod of dismissal from the old man, Naruto walked to the door with his new/old book in his arms. He'll beat this 'chall-enge' in no time.

"Just make sure to do your punishments in the meantime."

Naruto face faulted, then stood and turned slowly to the smiling and waving Hokage. "You just had to ruin the moment didn't you old man," he mumbled quietly, then smiled cheekily. "Just keep that seat warm for me, Jiji!" With that he walked out the door with a click.

* * *

Hiruzen chuckled at the boy's antic as he exited and leaned back into his chair and sighed heavily.

"That boy is going to wear me out."

Cat, quiet throughout the exchange, turned her head to the Hokage.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

The Hokage turned to her quizzically, "You may."

"I apologize, I looked into that book myself and I must say that it's very detailed and described very thoroughly and the pictures looked very realistic." She paused for a moment for the Hokage to digest her comment. "Almost as if the creatures, these 'Pokémon', truly existed." The Hokage sat up from his chair then walked to the window facing his village. Cat watched him as he placed his arms behind his back, still looking out. "Is it wise to give that boy false hope of the creatures existence?"

Hiruzen looked to the busy street below watching the village mingle, shop and run to work. Children played and chased each other, he always smiled at that but not the one he searched for. He didn't look in the big crossroads or the shops, but there in an alley on the side in his sights, a speck of blonde yellow walked along looking into his new/old book, avoiding the busy street mostly from the glares and hatred from the villagers. It saddened Sarutobi to see that Naruto has to hide from the people but he knew the boys pranks will be back to show them that he was still there. The Hokage smiled from his view point, as he saw an excited smile on the boy's face as he flipped the pages to the different pictures. That was a sign of hope for the future of the blonde and the village.

"In this world, life is all a mystery, only when we see it through our own eyes do we believe of its existence. Yet, for when something that does not seem real, dreamers are inspired to pursue that they truly exist and in the meanwhile improve themselves to make their own life worthwhile." He then turned to his ANBU. His eyes portrayed a tired old man but his presence radiated as her wise and powerful leader. "Let the boy dream. So he may be inspired to improve his own life to make it worthwhile."

Silence filled the office between the two until the ANBU nodded to the Hokage sat back in his chair, sighing then groaning when he saw his old enemy, paperwork. Not denying his imminent paper fate, he took up his pen then looked at Cat and smiled.

"Thank you for your assistance today, Cat. Could you call to get Iruka Umino to my office please." 'He'll be a good tutor for Naruto. They have some things in common that could help them both.' "Then you are free for the rest of the day. Now I have to do this paperwork I ignored, thanks to Naruto," he complained (Whined) quietly, hoping Cat didn't hear him.

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

He sighed, relieved at that until…

"One more thing sir…Uzumaki-san was right, you do whine."

She disappeared in a puff of smoke and leaving with a slight giggle behind for the mock-angered Hokage to scoff at the spot she left.

"Oh, honestly. The cheek of that boy is contagious." He chuckles, shook his head, and returned to the paper piles.

* * *

The lone figure watched silently through the Hokage office window from its viewpoint on the Yondaime Hokage's stone head of the monument. It's hand glowed a strange blue light before fading, its task done. The aura of a smile resonated in the air. Its voice a near disembodied tenor.

"Phase one, complete."

Then it fazed and vanished from view.

* * *

That was the prolouge, hoped you like it. Please leave comments, just don't be too hard on me.

Pokemon listed from the story: 1) Kyogre

2) Rayquaza

3) Swablu and Altaria

4) Heracross


	2. The North Wind

Here is renewed and fixed version of chapter 2, not much has changed but I hope you like it just as well, Thank you.

Legand: Talking

'Thinking'

***Inner Sakura***

:: Pokemon Talking, and to other Pokemon :: (I thank Mollimon for the inspiration.)

_:: Pokemon Thinking, and Pchyic Pokemon talking in the human mind. ::_

_ ~*Flashback*~_

* * *

Chapter 2

The North Wind

A sky of blue and small clusters of white form above the forest canopy, songs of birds and insects fill the air of a beautiful mid morning day. An unpaved road cut through the forest as the only sign of human involvement for travelers to walk through, but the travelers we seek are not on this path but within the leaves of the trees parallel to it. Four figures jump, glide, and hop at a moderate pace along the branches for three of them were still grasping the art of it, while the fourth and tallest figure expertly glided through the leaves.

He was of a man in his late twenties, a lean strong build, gravity defying gray-white hair stood on his head, and a single solitary dark eye observed his surroundings. The attire he wore was that of his occupation and status: darkened blue jumpsuit pants and long sleeve shirt, a bandage fastening carrying pouch on his right thigh, a green flask vest jacket symbolized him as the Jonin instructor of his Genin team, fingerless black gloves on his hands, and toe and heel tipped shinobi sandals graced his feet. His face was never shown for he wore his recognizable half face mask on, from the top of his nose to his neck, and his hitai-ate of the swirled leaf of his village hidden in the leaves, Konoha, which covers his left eye that identifies him as, Kakashi Hatake.

Kakashi slowed his pace to have his team catch up to him. He had wanted them to continue exercising on their new abilities of tree walking after they had finished that…interesting mission to Wave Country. They each came behind him at their own pace through the branches, carrying their packs on their backs, consisting of two 12 year old boys and one girl.

Sakura Haruno was ahead, showing her near mastery of the exercise. She had a lean yet able feminine body, her face was fair with emerald green eyes and had a crown of long pink hair tied with her hitai-ate as a head band. Her attire had a red shirt that divided down into flaps from her waist to her front and back; a white band circle on the bottom part of the front flap. She wore blue shorts a pouch on her right leg, and blue shinobi sandals. Kakashi could see that she was breathing hard, trying to concentrate her chakra from her feet to the trees. 'She has incredible control, as most kinoichi do, but she needs to build up on her stamina,' he thought. 'Maybe an at home strength training routine could help her.'

Sakura's former lead pace slowed more as one of her teammates came up from behind to take the lead with a superior flare, nothing short from the rookie of his class year. She, despite losing her lead and being a little winded, sighed in awe at her crush and idol, Sasuke Uchiha.

Sasuke was the last of his clan, but he had all the traits of the Uchiha. Lean pale skinned body, raven colored hair that spiked up on the back of his head and piercing black eyes that hid the bloodline trait of his family that he released on their mission. His hitai-ate was tied around his forehead. He wore a high collared dark blue short sleeve shirt, beige-white shorts, black shinobi sandals and white arm warmers on his fore arms. Kakashi watched him more closely, after the incident in Wave he had to make sure the boy's nerves were in working order. So far Sasuke was pacing himself well, even going faster leaving Sakura behind in a more winded state.

Kakashi sweatdropped and sighed at that. 'Maybe I should teach Sasuke more on humility, cause chivalry is out.'

Rustling of leaves and grunts directed his gaze from his two students, then smiled behind his mask as he watched his third, but most surprising student jump from branch to branch not too far behind.

A crown of sun-yellow blonde spiked hair individualized Naruto Uzumaki from others, his blue eyes, whisker marked cheeks and his hitai-ate focused on the next tree to get his bearings. His tanned skinned body maneuvered around within his trademark orange jacket, with a white color and blue accents on his shoulders and orange pants, and blue shinobi sandals. His pouch clung on his right thigh and a yarn swirled patch on his left shoulder. Despite trailing last Naruto was getting more nimble and surprising quick. 'He's not a master now, but he's making good progress. So maybe, when I have time I could help him with his taijutsu, he needs it,' thought Kakashi.

Now when he first met his team, his first impressions were predictable with each one: the brooding avenging top rookie, the obsessive fan girl, and the prankster dead last. He almost didn't want to pass them, but pressure from the village council demanded him to take them to help the Uchiha, to them the other two were extra baggage. He would teach Sasuke but he'll do what he can to help them altogether. However, after their last mission, some his perspective of them had changed: Sasuke had activated his Sharingon and was willing to learn more, Sakura had gotten more control of her emotions in a fight and mental smarts to understand genjutsu, and Naruto…surprised him the most. The boy was able to still stand and fight against Gato's thugs after fighting a high level chunin with a bloodline limit. Kakashi had to admit that he underestimated his team and was looking forward to help them expand their abilities and power; he'll have to re-review their files more, in case of more surprises.

"Sensei…" a semi-breathless voice drove Kakashi from his thoughts.

He looked to see Sakura trying to come up to him until he stopped for her to catch up. She was heavily panting and had her canteen out, holding upside down and shaking it.

"Kakashi-sensei, I'm out of water," she said showing her canteen to him. He sighed and called for the boys to stop.

"Sorry Sakura, I only have half a canteen left," he told her.

Naruto, who had come up from behind, stood next to Sakura and produced his canteen from his pack. "So do I," he said, then looked to Sakura and partly held out his canteen to her with a fox-like smile. "But you can have some of mine, Sakura-chan."

The girl sighed, then looked up to see Sasuke come from the lead to join him. She smiled and looked at him hopefully, not noticing Naruto's disappointed look.

"Sasuke-kun, do you have any water?"

The raven haired boy 'hn'ed, took out his canteen then shook it, frowned, then looked back at them. "I'm out too."

Sakura sighed again, Naruto pouted irritably while Kakashi shook his head. 'I really need to work on their team dynamics still.' He sighed then addressed them. "Alright it's still a ways back home, so we'll stock up on water and take a break." They nodded to agree then he closed his eye to hear and smell around them. His blocked out his heartbeat, the wind in the trees, the birds singing, and other noises until he heard and smell running water. He reopened his eye then pointed across the road. "There's a small stream not too far from here. We'll fill up our canteens there."

GROOOWLLL!

"Naruto!" Sakura exclaimed while frowning and throwing out her arm at the blonde. ***He's a walking stomach! GROSS! Shannaro!***

"That wasn't me!" he exclaimed, avoiding her punch.

Sakura blinked at him for a moment then heard another growl and looked behind to see her crush. He had a small blush on his cheeks, but kept his indifferent look as he looked away.

"I'm out of rations too."

Sakura blushed at her mistake. "Oh." Then she turned to Naruto, who still had a pose for her next punch, just in case. "Sorry Naruto," she smiled at him while the blonde sighed in relief, and then smiled back.

"It's fine, Sakura-chan." He looked to Sasuke and smirked at him. "Hey teme, you you're supposed to keep track of your rations. What happened, did you pig out before we left? Heh!"

POW! "OW!"

"Don't bother Sasuke-kun!"

"Hn, dobe."

Kakashi just sighed then took out his own canteen. "Ma, ma that's enough. Sasuke why don't you and Sakura go to the stream and refill the canteens? Naruto and I will forage for some food. I'm out as well."

He handed the stoic raven and ecstatic fangirl the canteens and replied, "Hai." Then took them, and Naruto, however, pouted.

"Aw, why can't I go with Sakura-chan?"

Kakashi looked to him with his smiling eye. "Well I heard from a reliable source that you are an expert at foraging."

Naruto blushed modestly a bit and rubbed the back of his head. "Well yeah. Iruka sensei taught me." Iruka had taught him in case he needed food that was available to eat when ramen wasn't. He told him all of the edible food he could eat and those he should avoid.

"Who do you think told me?" replied his Cyclops-sensei. "It's better to forage with two pairs of eyes instead of one."

'Don't you mean 1½ pairs?' Naruto wanted to say but didn't to not waste time and just nodded reluctantly.

Looking to his team again Kakashi warned, "Remember to use the team call should any trouble come. Let's review that call."

All three whistled a small tune pattern then the two groups split.

* * *

Naruto walked ahead of Kakashi looking around for anything edible. 'Maybe I should get Sasuke some sour grapes to match his mood. Hehe,' thought the blonde. 'Wonder what sensei found yet.' He turned only to face fault when he saw his sensei reading that stupid little orange pervy book of his. Naruto stood up and growled, irritated at the Jonin.

"Hey! I thought the both of us were going to forage?"

Kakashi looked up from his book and eye-smiled at him. "Ever heard of multitasking Naruto? It's something that you may develop in the future."

"Like I'm going to forage while reading porn! Are you even looking around?" Naruto exclaimed while his eyebrow twitched.

"Aren't you? Because you didn't notice those chestnut trees over there." He pointed to his right, his eyes never leaving his book.

Confused Naruto looked to the direction his sensei pointed to a small grove of chestnut trees. The chestnuts themselves were mildly large, a rounded triangle shape of brown with a white color around the pointed top and clustered in small groups in the leaves. He glanced back to the Jonin, who was still reading his book, sweatdropped then sighed and walked to the grove. As he reached the base of one tree he concentrated his chakra to his feet and walked up the trunk. Kakashi looked up from his book to watch the blonde, noting the boy's improving technique until Naruto was able to reach the first branch and sat down on it.

"Make sure to check if they're in season."

"Hai!" Naruto called out then mumbled. "I know that already, believe it." He took the first chestnut from its cluster, cracked it open and put the meat in his mouth. "Yum, it's good!" Then he started packing more of the sweet nuts into his pack.

The Jonin chuckled as he watched him, then as he went back to his book when something caught his eye. He looked to his left with a puzzled expression. 'That's interesting.' He put his book back in his pouch, walked closer in front of it. 'This is something I've never seen before.' He called for Naruto, who's pack was near bursting. "Hey Naruto! Come take a look at this."

Naruto looked back down from his branch seat to see his teacher looking up at something. "Coming." He hitched his pack and jumped down. "What is it sensei?" he asked as he jogged up.

"Have you ever seen these before?"

Naruto looked to the tree they were facing and softly exclaimed, "Whoa!" The low dark beige tree was full of strange looking blue berries, but not like the blueberries he was used to seeing. These were much larger and had a harder outer skin. He plucked one and brought it up to his face to get a closer look. "It feels a little harder than other blueberries."

"I don't think it is one, certainly not grown on trees. This isn't in any of the acknowledged berries in Fire Country."

Naruto 'hmm'ed a bit then he noticed something else. "Hey there's more, but there different."

Not too far was a small grove of blue leaved trees that held strange bold dark red with spikes on them. Naruto walked up and plucked one from its branch taking a good look. "It looks like a tomato with spikes."

"Don't you mean 'Tamato'," Kakashi chuckled.

"Hey don't try that-" Naruto cut himself off then looked back at the berries in his hand. 'Tamato' clicked in his mind as he stared at the berry. 'Why does that sound familiar?' he shrugged his shoulders that maybe it was his imagination. It looked good so why not try it, it may taste like a tomato. He brought the spiked berry to his mouth, but Kakashi's hand gripped his wrist. He looked at his sensei.

"We don't know if it's poisonous or not." The Cyclops-sensei warned.

That made the blonde stretch his arm out away from himself and makes a face. "Egh." He looked back up to the Jonin. "Then what do we do about them?"

"We'll take some samples for the village researchers. They're probably a new species."

Kakashi watched Naruto nod and started put some berries into his back, then watched him walk around some bushes toward a far clearing. "Stay within earshot, Naruto."

"Hai," came the reply.

He chuckles when the blonde came out of sight but he could still feel his chakra. His ears perked when he heard rushing sounds in the trees behind him. His hand reached for his kunai pouch but stilled when he heard a familiar whistled tune and felt two chakra signatures, yet kept his hand there as Sakura and Sasuke dropped in front of him.

"What's my favorite book?"

"Besides that trash you read?" replied Sasuke irritably.

"You never told us," finished Sakura.

Easing his muscles Kakashi addressed the two. "So did you find the stream? That was a quick trip."

"We did but we can't drink from there," explained the pinkette. "When we got there the stream was contaminated. The water was brown and had debris flowing from up stream."

"Probably a storm happened up stream while we were gone," voiced Sasuke.

Kakashi thought of the situation; there wasn't another source of water from here to Konoha, and with the discovery of the new berry species could delay them and waste more time. Naruto was still in the area, from his chakra signature, so he could call him back when needed. He looked back to his other students.

"Alright, after Naruto gets back we'll go to the stream and filter what we can. Any questions?"

"Where is Naruto?"

"CRUUUUUUU!"

"Whoa!"

"...Ask and you shall receive," muttered Kakashi as he sweatdropped.

"That came from this way," called Sasuke as he lead them toward the clearing. "What did that dobe do now?"

They moved quickly through the brush to the brightened tree line to the clearing and came upon a scene with wide eyes and exclaims.

"What The!" Sharingon eyes widen.

"Gasp!" Hands covered her mouth.

"By Kami!" A single black eye widen with shock.

The clearing of soft short grass surrounded by trees had a small trench filled with water. Naruto had fallen back on his seat leaning back away and panting from being startled by the growling mass before him. The mass itself was a creature as big as a horse, but looked more like a slender dog. Its body color was a turquoise blue with white diamond spots on its sides, and white underbelly that reached up around its snarling muzzle and chin crest. Its darker teal tall head crest formed above in an oval with small horns on each side at the base. The mane of dark lavender flowed along it's back like a cape and its tail split into two ribbons that flowed parallel with its body. The red eyes above the snarling muzzle looked up at the new intruders but it didn't lunge or charge at them.

'But why?' wondered Kakashi. He looked to the fallen blonde if he had any physical injuries. Seeing none he asked, "Naruto, are you alright?"

Naruto slowly came up from his downed position then backing up to his team, aware that the creature was still growling and watching his every move yet still not charging.

"I'm fine sensei."

"What did you do Naruto?" Sakura chide him, finally out of her shock, then startled when the creature snarled loud.

"Cruu!"

"Keep your voices low," ordered Kakashi, staying Sasuke's hand from reaching his kunai pouch. "Any loud noises could set it off."

"It hasn't done that yet," stated Sasuke, keeping his eyes on the creature.

"We don't know what this thing is and /or what it is capable of. Naruto," he called to the blonde. "What happened?"

"I was just collecting those berries like you told me, sensei," explained Naruto lowly. He looked back at the creature worriedly. "I came into this clearing when I heard something growl behind me and this came in my view." He then pointed to the hindquarters of the creature. "It's caught in a wire trap too, by its back leg."

Kakashi looked at the leg and there the wire was tied to a rock near the water and the loop wire wrapped the hook of the leg, tightening with the creature's movement, making it cut into the flesh. He could see streams of blood from the cut. 'That would explain why it didn't charge at us. A hunter must have left it for another animal.' He looked up to the creature when its growls lowered. 'This still could be dangerous.'

An injured animal is one thing, but an unknown injured animal would be disastrous.

"The poor thing," whispered Sakura. She looked up to her sensei. "What can we do sensei? We can't just leave it here."

"Do you have the first aid kit?"

"No I gave it to you."

'Damn I left my pack back at the grove.' He gathered his genins closer stilling the trapped creature that laid down to lick its wound while it eyed them. "I need to get my pack so stay here and keep an eye on it and any other dangers but don't do anything until I get back. Understood?"

"Hai."

With that he set off leaving them with a very wary animal. Sakura kept her eyes and ears open on the surrounding area, while Naruto kept his eyes on the trapped creature, his mind was on overload for some reason the creature before him was oddly familiar. 'I know I saw something like this thing before.' He shook his head. 'Dammit Naruto use this head of yours. Remember!' He sighed then looked up to piercing red eyes. The creature, from its down position, stared back at him with its mane flowing behind its head crest had a regal look to it. Naruto stared back into its intelligent eyes, as if it was searching for something within him. He gasped at faint sensations within his stomach. He placed a hand there trying to make sense of the feeling. 'The seal's really feeling funny.' He saw the fierce eyes looked more gentle and thoughtful at the spot, almost as if…

'Does it know of the fox?'

After what felt like hours within seconds, a rustling sound turned the now fierce eyes to its right. Puzzled, Naruto followed its gaze to see his teammate and rival rummaging in his pack. Opening his pack more Sasuke reached in and pulled out a coil of rope from it. Curious, Naruto stood up.

"What are you doing, Sasuke?"

"We don't want that thing trashing around," he said tying a loop knot. "We'll tie it's head to keep it from moving."

Feeling insecure Naruto glanced at the creature; hearing it growl lowly again as it watched Sasuke. 'It's dangerous that way.' Sakura called out to the Uchiha, voicing Naruto's thoughts.

"Don't Sasuke-kun, it's dangerous and Kakashi-sensei said not to do anything."

"And I won't until Kakashi comes back. It'll hurt itself more if we don't secure it." 'And we'll have a leash to help pull it back to the village so it can be studied.' He thought, readying the rope, unaware of the now standing growling creature.

Also unaware of the growing tension Sakura just sighed and inwardly agreed with her crush. 'Sigh, Sasuke is so caring with animals.' ***He's the definite sensitive type! Shannaro!***

However Naruto was still glancing at the creature nervous of what it will do, especially with that look it got.

"I don't know Sasuke, even with sensei's help it's dangerous and I'm pretty sure there's more to this." 'Something, I just know it.'

"Tsk, just stay there and out of the way, dobe."

"But I know there's something more to that thing than we realize."

"Naruto, stop being paranoid, Sasuke-kun knows what he's doing." ***Don't you want to help the poor creature you heartless baka! Shannaro!***

"Hey, I'm just following my instincts and my instincts are telling me that there's more going on here. Believe it!"

"Your instincts are as acute as your brain, dumb!"

"Hey don't start something, teme!"

"Will you just-" Suddenly Sakura cut herself off when she felt a strong energy in the air. A growl turned her eyes to the creature and they widen in surprise at the sight. The creature's head had tilted back with its mouth wide open and concentrating light and power, forming a ball of energy within it. Her surprise turned to horror that it was aiming at…

"SASUKE-KUN! WATCH OUT!"

"CRUUUUUUU!"

Blue and black eyes looked up to see a beam of power and light heading straight for them. One stood in shock while the other…

"Oh Shi-!"

* * *

Kakashi had found his pack and started back toward his team when…

**BOOM! CRASH!**

The ground shook, trees trembles, and birds cried and scattered in to the sky. The vibration nearly knocked Kakashi from his feet but he had kept his balance. 'What in the world?' His mind raced as he got his bearings. He looked up to the sky and saw a column of dust and debris.

Right where he left his team.

'Can't those three give me one day without causing trouble.'

He picked up his pace back to the clearing.

* * *

Sakura knew she screamed when the beam of light the creature made blasted at the boys. She hadn't known she had covered her eyes though, until she moved her hands away to peek out at whatever graced her sight. Dust and dirt plumed from the ground into the air, she saw the creature was still standing, staring at where it attacked. She quickly looked at the spot the boys were and gasped, half in awe and half horrified, at the damage. A deep trench from the beam covered through the clearing and cut into the trees, leaving a clear trail of destroyed trees and crumbling boulders.

'But where are the guys?'

She franticly looked around then sighed in relief when she saw them on the other side of the trench, looking not worse for wear.

Naruto, seeing the beam, reacted quickly and tackled Sasuke out of the line of fire and both landed on the ground as the beam destroyed everything in its path. Both were covered in dust and minor scrapes, panting and staring in awe at the damage where they had stood. Naruto's pack was torn at the top from the beam and some on its contents fell to the ground. Sasuke had never let go of the rope because of the sudden the sudden attack, the tackle, and the damage.

After a moment of stunned silence Naruto was the first to come out of his shock. He sighed in relief that they were both okay, inwardly complaining about his ruined pack. He looked down at Sasuke to see if he was alright, then scowled and punched his shoulder, knocking the raven out of his stupor to reassess the situation. He cringed at the sudden yelling in his ear.

"This is exactly what I was talking about, Teme!"

Sasuke scowled back at him and tried to shove the extra weight off. "Just get off me, dobe!"

Roughly thrown on his seat Naruto looked back at him with a matching scowl. "Well 'xcuse me for saving your ass, you ungrateful bastard!"

"Your idiotic yelling set it off loser!"

"It was aiming at you, you dumbass, because you wanted to tie it up!"

"I knew what I was doing, urusatonkachi!"

"And look what that brought us, duck butt!"

"Thank goodness, they're okay," sighed Sakura. As long as they're arguing then they're fine.

"Everyone alright?"

They turned to the tree line behind them to see their sensei rush out with his kunai in hand and pack. When he reached the scene he took note of everything, his team and the damage path. 'Incredible, what power. Is it a bijuu, no this kind of power can't be a bijuu. Then what is it?' He looked to the creature snarling loudly at the boys as they made their way to their sensei and pinkette teammate.

"Didn't I say not to do anything?" his narrowed eye scolded the two boys, who he knew were the culprits.

"Blame teme here-"

"IT'S GOING AGAIN!"

They turned to it forming another energy attack but this one was more powerful. 'Probably since I showed up.' Sasuke took out his kunai and kept the rope in his hand. Sakura was wide eyed at feeling the power as Kakashi moved in front of her and raised his hitai-ate, revealing his Sharingon eye. Naruto just stared more at the creature and a flash of recognition came to him and seeing his team ready to counter the attack he quickly reacted the only way he could.

"No Wait! STOP! SUI-"

~*Flashback*~

_The classroom was always quiet after hours, the joy of silence usually eases Iruka's mind from the chaos and ruckus of his students. He normally just finish his work and calm his headaches in the blissful silence. Yet, now it was semi-quiet for he had to do reading tutoring for one of his major headache cases, Naruto Uzumaki. The small blonde was sitting in his usual desk with Iruka sitting beside him, slowly pronouncing the words in his new/old book. Iruka was genuinely surprised that Naruto had progressed so quickly in only a month; it nearly took close to a year for others to reach where he was. _

_When the Hokage asked him to be Naruto's new teacher, he was anxious and apprehensive for he had his own mixed feeling for the Kyuubi container, since the fox had killed his parents. But the moment he and Naruto met, the boy peeking out fearfully from behind the Hokage's robe, a connection was formed between them as they found similar lonely kindred spirits. From then he did all he could to give Naruto a proper education of normal basics and shinobi guidelines like any child going into the ninja world._

_Iruka smiled as Naruto finished his page and turned to the next one. The boy was ecstatic to start reading his book and Iruka had to admit the creatures were fun to read about, even though they don't exist. The page turned to a new creature picture and Naruto's eyes lit up and pointed at the picture._

"_I like this one."_

_Iruka chuckled, 'He says that about almost every one.' He looked down at the picture. "Wow, it's a very exotic one."_

"_Believe it! Won't it be cool to have this as my partner, like Kiba Inuzuka when he gets his dog? Imagine it sitting next to me in the Hokage's office like a guard dog."_

"_I would but you're not Hokage yet."_

"_I can dream." Pout._

"_Alright. Let's see if you can guess its name."_

_He pointed to the printed name under the picture and watched Naruto, as the blonde focused on it. He stifled a snort of laughter at Naruto's look of concentration: squinting his eyes at the page, scrunching his nose up, and setting his chin out. Then he started to sound out…_

" '_Su', 'I'?" He looked to Iruka to see if he was right, but the scarred brunette shook his head 'no'._

"_Remember your vowels, Naruto."_

_The blonde looked back again the smiled. "Oh, yeah it's one of those 'i's the turn into 'e's right?"_

"_Yep."_

"_Those are hard to get."_

"_You have time to practice. Now try it again."_

_Naruto sounded out the word along with his finger._

" '_Su', 'e', 'cune', 'Sui'-'cune'. Awesome it's called a…"_

_~*KAI!*~_

"SUICUNE! STOP! SUICUNE!"

Silence.

That was all Kakashi heard when he stilled to watch Naruto suddenly move in front of them and scream for this 'Suicune' to stop its attack. He had heard Sakura scream for the blonde and Sasuke call to him to move but when the silence came everyone froze. The creature before them, with its attack still in its mouth, was staring back at Naruto as the boy had spread his arms out in front of him, staring back wide eyed and breathing deeply. A few intense moments passed before the creature's pall of power and light decreased in size and vanished. Its mouth closed and stared back at the blonde and waiting; its leg was bleeding more from the wire cutting deeper from its movement.

'It responded?' Kakashi mix matched eyes widened at the scene along with his other students. The creature had responded to the name in Naruto's pleading cry. Was it intelligent? Can it understand human language? What other powers does it have? Where did it come from? His eyes moved to the blonde as Naruto's shoulders eased. 'How does Naruto know of it?' He watched as Naruto moved to slow step ahead as spoke reassuring to the creature.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry we scared you."

"Naruto! Don't-" Sakura tried to stop him but Kakashi had the block her. She looked at him worriedly as he shook his head to her, then to Sasuke when the raven readied his kunai. They had to trust Naruto for this.

'Naruto just keeps surprising me every time.' Kakashi thought as he looked back on the exchange between Naruto and 'Suicune'.

"We only just want to help you," reassured Naruto as Suicune looked at him warily. "All of us do."

Suicune's piercing red eyes shifted to his left and growling lowly. Naruto glanced behind him to see Sasuke, his hand still had the robe.

"Sasuke," called Naruto softly to him. Sasuke's eyes moved to him. "Get rid of the rope." Naruto motioned his hand slightly.

Sasuke hesitated and gripped the rope tighter as he looked to the Jonin. Kakashi nodded his head to get rid of the rope, but the look in his eyes directed to him was evidence that Kakashi knew what he wanted to do with it. He hated to follow Naruto's order but if his sensei enforced it…He scoffed silently as he tossed the rope behind him into the bushes. Then he humbly raised his hands with his palms facing out to the creature to show he didn't wish to harm it.

"See, even Sasuke wanted to help you. Although he was being an idiot about it." Naruto ignored the two pairs of glares on his back. "But we all want to help you. We can get that wire off, but please just trust us for a little while."

No one moved as the 'Suicune' glanced at each of them; they felt the eyes look within them. Then it eased its body, snorted at them then sniffed the air a couple times before looking down to the ground; The team tensed at this action. Puzzled, Naruto followed its gaze to see some of the chestnuts and strange blue berries scattered on the ground. 'They must have fallen out of my pack when it got ripped in its attack.' He flinched when he saw Suicune's muzzle come down to try and get one of the berries but they were out of reach. It cried out when the wire around its leg tightened with its movement, cutting deeper into its flesh. 'It must have been here for a while, it should really be hungry.'

A hand on his shoulder stopped his thoughts and he looked back to the red eye of his sensei. 'That still gives the creeps.' He inwardly shuddered.

"Naruto," Kakashi whispered. "Can you distract it?" His gaze looked down to the berries. 'Its properly starvation, but this 'Suicune' knows what those berries really are. What could be the connection?'

Naruto looked to his sensei then down to the food items on the ground, his eyes widen when he got the idea. "Hai, sensei," he replied as he went to pick the food up. Slowly he reached for the blue berries and chestnuts, while Suicune slightly moved its head up to watch him. It growled low as Naruto tentatively picked up the one it was reaching for before Naruto rolled them closer to its muzzle.

It paused to glance at the food then looked up to Naruto, who nervously smiled back to reassure of intentions. After a moment of tense silence Suicune lowered its head to eat. Naruto sighed in relief then turned to his team to raise a thumb up then started rolling the berries and chestnuts to where Suicune's head turned away from its injured leg.

Kakashi nodded then turned to Sakura behind him. "Sakura, keep watch we don't want anyone or anything sneaking up on us." The pinkette hesitantly nodded, glanced at Naruto feeding the creature then went to the tree line. Kakashi looked to Sasuke, who went to find his rope and coil it up to put in his pack. "Sasuke, keep an eye on it and alert me if it moves aggressively."

At Sasuke's nod Kakashi placed his pack down and took out his first aid kit and small wire cutters. Getting up he slowly walked closer to the back region of the creature. He glanced to see it eating the nuts and berries Naruto rolled to it. The blonde looked at him and nodded to him to continue. The Jonin nodded back, took a deep breath, and then crouched down to the wire. Taking the cutters out he moved to sandwich the wire then cut it. He glanced at the crested head for changes, but it still ate the nuts then went back to his work. Slowly removing the wire from the cut flesh he put the cutters down then took out a damp cleaning towel and healing slave from the kit. Smoothly cleaning the blood off, he wiped it off the flinching leg.

"Kakashi!" came the whispered alert from the Uchiha.

Kakashi froze then slowly turned his head to meet with another piercing red eye. Tense he stared back, trying to keep calm. The 'Suicune' neither moved nor looked aggressive toward him, it was relaxed and still. He could barely see the worried work Naruto made from behind the creature's head and he could sense the nervous auras from his other two students. Yet, he eyes never left the others, his body relaxing to show he was helping. The 'Suicune' just stared back, more pointedly at his given Sharingon eye.

Kakashi had been intimidated by many stares in his life and career: the aftermath of his father's suicide, the meeting with his Jonin sensei, who soon became Hokage, the eyes of the youngest captain in ANBU from the Uchiha clan, the Kyuubi's, the council's, and Obito's half stare within his mirror. But this…

'What is this?' Kakashi thought franticly from sensations from the Sharingon eye that shuddered throughout his body. 'Obito's eye is resonating with it.' He shockingly looked back at the now half-lidded stare, as if it was saying, "You may continue." Then the 'Suicune' snorted and went back to eating the berries from a relieved blonde.

Kakashi silently let out a breath he didn't know he was holding then went back to his task. Finishing putting the salve on the wound he then quickly wrapped gaze around it. After securing it firmly he stood up and slowly walked backwards and motioned Naruto to follow him. Nodding the blonde left one last berry and chestnut he stood up as well and walked back with his sensei, leaving the 'Suicune' to finish eating and take a look at its released bandaged leg.

They watched as it lifted it leg up and down, adding pressure to it, for internal damages. Finding none its head rose to meet with theirs, its red eyes bore to them yet not as hostile. Then it raised his right front leg and lowered its head into an equine bow of gratitude and with an unexpected gust of a breeze from the north it ran quickly into the tree line on the other side of the clearing and vanished into the brush.

After a moment they all released a breath and Naruto softy sounded out what they all thought.

"Wow."

"That's probably the right word for it, Naruto," Kakashi sighed and lowered his hitai-ate then looked up to the sky and the suns position. 'Good, that didn't take too long.' "We'll head back to the road and find that stream. We still need water so by the time we filter it we might make it back home after night fall." His team nodded and went to pick up his pack and waited with Sasuke as Sakura helped Naruto fix up his pack and pick up his stuff.

The Jonin turned to Sasuke to see the raven-haired genin stare at the damage path of the 'Suicune's' attack. It was powerful, yes, to destroy so much in one blow, such power would be benefactual to Konoha; Kakashi knew this for he had the same thoughts with similar terms. Yet, this kind of power was unknown, unpredictable, and too untamable for them to bring to Konoha. Sasuke must have now thought this as the boy sighed and shook his head. Team 7 finally regrouped and restocked on food and samples of the berries and went their way back to the road.

What transpired before still lingered in the genins minds as they walked across the road to the other side with their sensei leading them. Sasuke walked with him and Sakura walked with Naruto; they talked in low tones.

"We should have tried and taken it back, with its power-"

"Don't Sasuke, even if we did it would've taken too much time and energy to haul it."

"We could've found out what it was with the researchers."

"Naruto seems to know." The masked sensei turned to the embarrassed blushing blonde with his eye smile. "Don't you?"

"How did you know, Naruto?" asked Sakura beside him.

Naruto smiled slightly and rubbed the back of his head nervously. "A book."

"A book?" she gave him an incredulous look. "Really?"

"Believe it, it was something Jiji gave me before I started at the academy, a long time ago."

"Jiji?"

"Oh yeah, I mean old man Hokage." That gave him whack to the head.

"Call him properly, baka!"

"He doesn't mind. Anyway, well one day he gave me this book to help me read and it was about these awesome animals that had these powers and Suicune was one of them. But…"

"But?"

"Well he and Iruka-sensei said it was made up—No wait, what was that word…Oh fiction! Yeah, fiction."

"What we saw back there sure wasn't fictional," voiced Sasuke thoughtfully.

'No kidding.' They all thought in unison, thinking back to the power and damage of it.

"Do you still have the book, Naruto?" asked Kakashi.

Naruto crossed his arms and gave a fox-like thoughtful look as he walked and answered. "Well, I haven't seen it in a long while, what with training, classes, pranks and…other things," he had a solemn look as he mumbled the last one. "I became too overwhelmed and spent less time with it. If I remember right it's probably still back in my apartment."

"Under a table leg, no doubt," scoffed Sasuke.

Naruto scowled up to him, irritated. "Hey! Even I know how to treat books with respect, Teme!" 'Besides the last time I did that Iruka-sensei took my ramen reward privileges away for a month. I don't want that to happen again, believe it.'

Kakashi calmed him down, "Maa, maa enough you two. Do you think you could find it again?"

"Yeah, once I get back."

"There it is," called Sakura, pointing ahead.

There on a rock and grass bed was a 3 ft wide stream flowing from a small waterfall not too far away, it was moderately fast flowing as it made its winding way through the trees. Yet, as Sakura and Sasuke had said the water was a milky brown with floating dark chunks of leaves, mud and branches that flowed from up stream. Naruto suddenly pinched his nose.

"Egh! It reeks!"

The pungent smell did grate the team, but Kakashi had no other choice.

"Sasuke, why don't you start a fire, we'll get the water ready," he said as he took out some tin cups from his pack.

"But it'll take hours to filter from this muck," whined Sakura.

He smiled back at her. "Then we better get started."

The genin sighed in unison. 'Aw man.'

SPLASH!

Naruto looked up at the sound and turned his head upstream. His eyes widen and he exclaimed.

"Hey Look!"

The rest of Team 7 looked up and turned to the direction Naruto pointed to and there on the waterfall, on the water itself, in all its splendor was Suicune. Its lavender mane flowed along it back, looking back at them, like looking at a deity from legend. From its position it looked down at them and the contaminated water with calculating eyes.

"What is it doing?" Sasuke asked as he reached for his kunai pouch with Kakashi's hand on his shoulder, staying it.

'It's standing on the water like it had chakra, yet I don't sense any chakra from it,' Kakashi thought as he watched it carefully. Suddenly he tensed when it started to raise its head to bay loud.

"CRUUUUUUU!"

They all watch in awe as its body started to shine a white glow with its cry. Then it jumped from the waterfall to gallop along the stream flow, it paws leaving the water glowing in its wake. Neither slowing nor stopping as it ran by them until it reached a distance away from them. When it did stop the power on his body decreased until vanishing and it turned its head to look back at the stunned humans.

For a moment they couldn't figure out what it had done until Sakura looked down at the stream and gasped at the sight.

"Gasp! The stream!"

The man and boys looked to the stream and were amazed that it had changed from a muddy and foul smelling stream to looking clean and free of odor and debris. Sasuke, taking a risk, walked down to the bank and scooped up some of the water in his hands to his lips. He sipped some of the water and looked back to Kakashi.

"It's pure," he said with surprise in his voice.

'Impossible!' thought the wide eyed Jonin. He knew no creature, not even a biju, can purify water, but this one had just ran across the stream and purified it. He looked back to it. 'Is it thanking us?'

Naruto just laughed excitedly and cheered. "Ha, ha that's so awesome!" He smiled wide and looked back up to Suicune and waved back to it. "Thank you!"

It looked back at the blonde with a more calculated look, Kakashi noted, and then raised its head to bay again.

"CRUUU!"

And again vanished into the trees.

The Jonin and Genins watch it go then Kakashi chuckled and shook his head. 'I guess some old virtues still exist in this mysterious world.' He looked back to his team.

"Alright thanks to… Suicune." He saw Naruto smile at him. "We will be home before dark."

* * *

On a high rock outcrop, Suicune looked down where it saw the humans fill their canteens and made their way back to the road and trail down to their village. It looked back to its bandage leg as a green power glowed on it and the bandage fell to reveal a healed leg, it cut wound gone. It nodded its head then looked back down to the fading figures.

::Well, what is your analysis?::

_::…The boy is flawed::_ Suicune acknowledged its companion. _::He lacks full skills of few things, he charges in and just goes with what he learns in a heated situation, and an exceptional amount of hidden potential that will take time to unveil. Yet, above all else…:: _It looked to its companion and seemed to smile at it. ::_He's perfect. His tenant now knows of our presence again. Is the catalyst ready for him?::_

::Yes, he'll have it on the morrow.::

Suicune looked forward and up to the sky in a distant and thoughtful look. _:: To think that after all this time and planning, our dream will come true.::_


	3. The Chestnut

A/N: Hey everyone at last the third chapter is updated sorry for the long wait, but I had to write in between classes and work, but you know the feeling, as well as new story ideas going through my mind. The good thing is that this is long and some may find it boring but this has Naruto finally meeting his Pokémon and even its name.

Just to clear up some things from reviews in the second chapter, I thank who ever commented about some flows on some spelling, but for the comment about how to read about vowels in Naruto's tutoring, I was meaning the sound of the vowel 'I' not that they really turn into 'e's. So excuse me if I was implying it differently. Any way I hope some noticed that I changed the second chapter just a bit to some things, but I hope you like this chapter and again sorry for the long wait. The next one will take some time but I appreciate your patience.

Legend: "Talking"

'Thinking'

***Inner Sakura***

:: Pokemon Talking. ::

**Sounds from other room**

*"Intercom"*

_~*Flashbacks*~_

XX*_Dream_*XX

* * *

Chapter 3

The Chestnut

He trudged his way through the door, turned to lock it, and dropped his pack to the floor beside his night dresser; placing his book on its top. His apartment was normal as others were: 20ft by 10ft size, a small kitchen with a refrigerator and small heater, at the far end was an enclosed toilet and washing basin, a sink with a mirror, and his bed laid beside the dresser and a window above it. From the window he had a great view of the Hokage Tower and Monument in the distance. Sighing, turning his light on he walked to his cupboard and took out a ramen cup. Starting his heater he placed a filled tin kettle on it to boil some water. Honestly, he hated waiting to make his ramen at home, going over to Ichiraku was faster but today he wanted to think over things that happened on the particularly long day. Naruto looked out his window seeing the lights of the village softly light up the night sky, shadowing the monument as the stars twinkled from afar.

'What a day,' he thought. So much had happened today and he and his team had to retell it to the old man.

_~*4 hours ago, Hokage Tower mission office*~_

_Team 7, having returned when the sun was closing in on the horizon, stood behind their sensei as Kakashi gave the Hokage a brief report of their wave mission. Sakura stood between the stoic Sasuke and a 'bouncing on his feet' Naruto; she was trying not to punch him in front of her leader and their old chunin sensei, who sat next to the Hokage, Iruka Umino. He still looked the same as he did from their class years with him: Tall tan skinned and lean muscled body, his brunette hair tied in a high spiked ponytail, he wore similar attire as Kakashi only without the gloves, his face still held the kind features they loved about him from his smile and brown eyes above the long scar across his nose. However Iruka had a concerned frown as he listened to their encounter with Zabuza Momochi of the Mist and the fake hunter-nin chunin, Haku. Naruto stopped bouncing at this then looked down with a solemn look on his face, Sasuke and Sakura noticed this but kept quiet._

_Kakashi continued on of the aftermath and the finishing of the bridge and their journey back._

_"Upon our way, around mid-morning, we realized we hadn't enough water and rations and split into two teams, Sasuke and Sakura had gone to a close by stream to refill our canteens while Naruto and I foraged for food. We did find chestnuts but then we found something more."_

_The Saidaime rose a gray eyebrow. "More Kakashi?"_

_The masked jonin then took out a small bag from his pouch and opened it up to pour out the hard blue berry and the red spiked tomato-like one on the desk before his leader and continued._

_"Naruto and I discovered small groves of these berries in the same area together. I asked him to collect more samples while I waited for the others. Suddenly Naruto had an extreme encounter," he turned to the blonde boy, taking note of his still hidden sad mood. "He'll tell you."_

_As if on cue, Naruto's mood went from solemn to excited and practically ran to the desk like a cheetah toward where Iruka sat. The Hokage and teacher expected an excited babble but what the blonde said stunned them greatly._

_"Iruka-sensei! I saw a Pokémon!"_

_For a moment the brunette just stared at him trying to understand the word; it rang a bell in his memory._

_"What Naruto?"_

_"You remember that book you tutored me with about them?"_

_"…Yes, now I do. What of it?"_

_"I saw one! A real Pokémon and it was Suicune!"_

_Iruka just stared then turned to the Hokage, but the older man had a thoughtful look on his face as he himself stared at the blonde. The scarred brunette turned back to Naruto's bright smile. He did remember the book of strange animals well, but all he thought of it was just a fictional dictionary for kids. Naruto couldn't have seen something that didn't exist, despite knowing Naruto never lied greatly. He looked skeptically at the blonde._

_"Naruto, please don't lie about something like this."_

_"But it's true! We all saw it!" Naruto was convinced as he turned to his teammates. "They saw it too."_

_Iruka watched wide-eyed as Sakura nodded to confirm Naruto's words and was surprised that Sasuke gave a curt nod in agreement._

_"It's true sensei, we all saw it with our own eyes," explained the pinkette. "You see, unfortunately it was caught in a wire trap…"_

The whistling of the kettle disrupted Naruto's thoughts and he quickly shut off the heater. Using a hand towel he removed the kettle and poured the hot water in his ramen cup. Putting the kettle away he covered the cup to heat the noodles; he always hated to wait 3 minutes for that. Yet, this time he had something to pass that. Walking to his night drawer he pickup the book and walked back to his table and flipped open the pages until he found the one he was looking for. He was amazed that same animal he saw this morning was the same as in this picture. It was hard to imagine; the same could be said with the old man Hokage and Iruka-sensei.

_Naruto and Sakura spoke of the encounter to almost the full detail, since Sakura didn't want to embarrass Sasuke with the rope incident. They talked about its main shape, the condition it was in, its powerful attack on the boys, Naruto's sudden intervention when it was going to attack again (Iruka scolded him for that), Kakashi healing its leg, and its power of purifying the stream. All throughout this, the Hokage never dropped his firm thoughtful look as he listened; at least Naruto hoped he listened. When the two were finished Iruka had a slight disbelieved look on his face._

_"How can you be sure it's the same?"_

_Naruto smiled at him. "I'm getting the book right now."_

_"Wha-"_

_They all turned to the oaken door of the office when voices and sounds came from it._

_"* 'xcuse me please!*"_

_"*Didn't I already see you go in?*"_

_The door opened to another Naruto coming in with a yellow and blue dictionary-like book in his arms and the surprised secretary, Mikazu, who, upon looking at the already Naruto in the office, thought she was seeing double._

_'Shadow clone, of course,' thought the Hokage and Iruka._

_When the team had returned Naruto must have made a clone to go to his apartment to find the hidden nearly forgotten book as the original when to report in with his team._

_The clone just walked up to the original and handed the book and a set of keys to him as Kakashi lead the still dizzied secretary out the door._

_"Here it is Boss," said the clone. "It was in a box under the bed."_

_"Did you lock the door?" asked Naruto, taking the book and keys, then smirked at Sasuke. 'Told ya it wasn't under a table leg teme.' Sasuke caught the look and just 'hned'._

_"Yeah," replied the cone then it scowled. "And Landlord-teme was demanding the rent."_

_"What! I paid that jerk 2 months' rent already!"_

_The occupants in the room watched the conversation between Naruto and the clone with amusement, embarrassment and a firm attention to make a mental note to speck with said Landlord-teme._

_"Take it up with him," the clone shrugged, then waved 'goodbye' and dispelled itself with a 'poof!'. Leaving Naruto to grumble then take the book over to his teammates and showed the cover. Kakashi came from behind and looked over their heads to see it._

_He 'hmmed' at the picture. 'A yellow mouse?'_

_Sakura cooed at the yellow mouse. 'Awe! How Cute!'_

_Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Pikapedia? How Lame."_

_"Hey, I didn't write it," Naruto looked to him irritably then back to the book to flip the pages through._

_The rest of Team 7 were amazed of how many of the creatures were listed and drawn with great detail. Each page had shown some that looked prehistoric, adorable, strong, and some looked down right bizarre. Iruka had come up to the group to look behind Sakura's shoulder, while the Saidaime just watched them from his desk, looking more directly at the book, his mind at work._

_'Could this be just a coincidence?' Hiruzen Sarutobi thought. 'Such a meeting shouldn't even be possible.' He stared intently on the worn book. 'And that book…is it apart of something in all this.' He remembered the feeling of an outside force suggesting him to give the book to Naruto so long ago, but he had thought that his mind was playing tricks. Yet, now with this encounter with a supposedly non-existent 'Pokémon', around the boy's first time outside the village, he thought more that it's not coincidental._

_"Here!" Naruto's shout brought the old Hokage from his thoughts to the huddled group looking at the page the blonde pointed to. "It was Suicune!"_

_"It's an exact match," voiced Kakashi._

_"What does it say?" ordered Sasuke._

_'A simple 'please' would do, Teme,' Naruto inwardly complained then read out the description. " 'Suicune', the aurora Pokémon. According to legend it is also known as a reincarnation of the north wind spirit. Its power was revered by its fellow legendary beasts Entei and Raikou. Yet, its greatest ability was to turn contaminated bodies of water pure again!"_

_"Like it did at that stream!" gasped Sakura._

_Iruka had the shake his head in disbelief at how their description of the creature and the picture matched. "Unbelievable!"_

_"Believe it Iruka-sensei!" exclaimed Naruto, turning to the brunette. "Do you think that the others are real too and out in the world somewhere?"_

_"Now hold on Naruto," Iruka raised his hands to the blonde. "This may have been a genjutsu."_

_"I was there Iruka and I never sensed any genjutsu in the area," Kakashi interrupted. "And from what I saw, the creature used no chakra based attacks of any kind since it didn't produce chakra."_

_"But that's impossible."_

_"Iruka," softly called the Hokage, the chunin stood to attention. "I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of it yet right now it's late and maybe freshened minds in the next morning will help the matter."_

_"…Hai, Hokage-sama."_

_The old tired leader then turned to Team 7. "As for your mission, I believe it will be labeled as an A-rank because of the circumstance so you'll be paid the A-rank pay, and you may have the week off."_

Slurp. Munch, Munch… Gulp. Slurp. Munch, Munch… Gulp.

As he ate his ramen Naruto recalled how excited he and his team were, when they were paid and was credited the A-rank, of course Sasuke-teme just smirked like it was nothing.

'That guy,' Naruto inwardly grumbled, then took a solemn look and put lowered his cup down. He really wanted to go to Ichiraku with Iruka-sensei to talk more about that morning after the Hokage had talked with him and Kakashi-sensei, but then Sasuke threw him for a loop that lead him to this current mood.

_The rookie genins exited the office door while the adults stayed in to discuss final details on the mission. Naruto had sat on a chair next to the door and opened his book to wait for Iruka as Sasuke and Sakura stood to leave. Sakura smiled at the boys._

_"Well, I'll see you guys later then. Bye"_

_Naruto waved and smiled at her as she turned to leave then went back to his book. He looked more into about the yellow mouse on the cover and found out its name 'Pikachu', a mouse that makes and attacks with lightning from its body. How cool would it be to have that around, think of all the pranks they could pull? He cackled inwardly as his prankster mind came up with a prank to set up Sasuke-teme with the ultimate 'door knob shock' of his life. Ha, ha._

_Lighting…_

_Crackling…_

_Like thousands of birds chirping at once..._

_Warm eyes of accepting friendship, then changed to accept death…_

_Naruto flinched and lowered his head to stare at a part of the book. Despite the excitement of seeing Suicune, the battle of the bridge was something he couldn't forget, nor what he learned about life as a real shinobi._

_'Haku.'_

_"You will become strong Naruto, when you find the one most precious to you."_

_"OI! Naruto!"_

_Naruto inhaled sharply to look up at Sasuke, who stood in front of him. The book looked like it was slipping from his hands, and he noticed Sakura had turned from her spot down the hall when she heard Sasuke call to him. He took a breath, had a firm hold of the book again, and looked back up to his rival._

_"Yeah Sasuke?"_

_"You just looked like you were about to drool on it, dobe."_

_Surprisingly to Sasuke, his teammate didn't shout at him, instead Naruto replied with a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his head._

_"Hee, hee thanks Sasuke. Iruka-sensei would have been mad if I did that."_

_'There he goes again,' thought the Uchiha. Whenever he or Sakura notice Naruto act differently than normal, like now when he was about to leave he noticed Naruto looking down into his book. He saw the blonde was looking at a particular page with, a first, a mischievous smirk then he flinched and Sasuke saw the orange and blue shoulders sag and the whiskered face fall into a sad distant stare. Then after a few moments, the book was being held more loosely and about to fall so Sasuke had to call the blonde out of his stupor. Naruto's behavior suddenly did a 180 from that sad look to the normal goofy, happy smile he always had seen. What goes through that mind of Naruto? The raven-haired boy shook his head. 'No matter, it's just my imagination.' He looked back at the blonde's still goofy look. 'There's still one thing left to do.' He took a deep breath then looked to Naruto in his impassive demeanor._

_"Naruto."_

_The orange clad boy blinked up at Sasuke and tilted his head curiously, his voice asking hesitantly. "Yeah?"_

_The Uchiha looked away for a moment. "About before…at the clearing," he looked back at him, his hands fisted in his pockets. 'Why is it so hard?' "…Thanks."_

_Naruto didn't respond for a moment but when he thought more he looked more embarrassed about it and rubbed the back his head and smiled up to his rival/teammate._

_"Heh, no prob Sasuke. We are teammates."_

_"Good…Now we're even," His voice just sounding of an Uchiha and he started walking down the hall ignoring a surprised Sakura._

He sighed as he flopped onto his bed, his nightcap adorning his head and his light blue nightshirt and pants covering his body. He just stared at the minor cracked ceiling of his apartment and thought and thought and thought about what had happened. He and Sakura were both surprised that Sasuke Uchiha, rookie of their class year and year round bastard (Not to Sakura of course) had thanked Naruto for saving his life but it wasn't that, that got him in this mood.

_Even._

'The way Sasuke said that…,' Naruto thought. 'Feels like we're keeping score with each other.' But he shouldn't really be surprised at that.

Ever since they acknowledged each other on that day long ago, when he was aimlessly walking around and saw Sasuke on that little dock, Naruto declared themselves rivals, making a real true bond. Arguing, fighting in class spars, and any and everything Naruto did to best Sasuke Uchiha to rid of the loneliness they both had in their hearts and prove to others that they are more than what was said in their past, their actions, and what future others think they'll have. And so thus went their interactions until they became a team. At the time he thought they would really develop a friendship together, especially after Wave…

_Senbon jetting towards them…_

_A mass of blue and black covering him…_

_Fading light in the black eyes staring up at him…_

"_I swore I wouldn't die…Until I killed him…My older brother…The oath would… save me but… Don't you dare die…"_

Naruto sighed again and turned on his side to face the window by his bed. He looked out to the night skyline of the distant buildings, the monument cliff to the starry sky. Thinking back, after Sasuke's 'thank you' and on what they nearly lost more than their gain on that mission, his mood had saddened more and just left the tower before Iruka walked out of the office. Instead he went to read on top of the Yondaime's head of the monument for some hours, trying to distract himself from all that happened to learn more of these 'Pokémon'. When the fading sunlight was vanishing on the horizon did he decide to head for his apartment to stare at the stars at this moment; brooding like an Uchiha.

What a pathetic mood of him.

'I guess, since we both saved each other, it is even,' he thought as he took a deep breath and blew out a soft raspberry then shut his eyes and snuggled in his bed. 'But should we really be keeping score?'

This last thought echoed in his mind as he drifted off into his dreams until he was fast asleep. Naruto was so deep asleep he never noticed a blue glow opening his window and a breeze blowing in.

XXX*Dream*XXX

_He stood at a distance from them, they had their backs to him, ignorant of his presence and he looked onto him, hoping they would turn to him and notice him there. Yet, behind him in his shadow, chaotically flailing around were nine black tendrils of fox tails, the reason of their distance, the reason of their hate of him, and the reason of his loneliness that's shown on his flowing tears._

_The small six year old image of the spiky haired blonde softly cried and tried to wipe his tears away with his arm. He knew no one could see them, one would care anyway…_

"_Eeee…"_

_He blinked at the sound, stopping his tears then looked up to a figure standing before him. He looked closer to see the smile of the scarred kind face of Iruka, his arms opening to him. He blinked rapidly in confusion at the brunette image then he noticed more figures behind Iruka. One was his new sensei, Kakashi, just standing there lazily with one hand in his pocket and the other greeting him like his normal greeting, but he looked like he was waiting for something. Beside him, in all his regalia stood Old Man Hokage with his arms folded behind him and smiling that grandfatherly smile. Then the small blonde noticed the Hokage's robe moving slightly until a crown of pink hair peeked out from behind the elder and looked at the blonde curiously. The small girl of his age had a red scarf tie keeping her hair up, and she wore a light pale green shirt and blue shorts and sandals on her feet. She walked from behind the Hokage to stand next to him with a shy curious look at the blonde; fiddling her shirt hem. Then another figure walked up beside her, this time it was a boy, also his age, wearing a long sleeve black shirt and shorts. His arms were folded in front of him, and his spiked raven hair spiked above his head and is black eyes looked at the blonde with an impatient frowned mouth, as if telling him, _"You coming or what dobe."

_Why are they here? Why were they looking at him with those inviting eyes? The others don't have those eyes; their backs are still to him. Should he walk forward toward the people inviting him? What should he do? He trembled with uncertainty and fear; should he really trust them? He looked down when his tears started again in his eyes._

"_Eee!"_

_He raised his head at the sound again, but it was coming from behind the figures before him and the backs facing him. Then a light, a small golden light was weaving through and around the forest of legs towards him. Hopping like a rabbit in a meadow, it left the leg forest, passed the friendly figures and surprisingly leapt into his arms._

_The first thing he noticed was that the light was solid, and then he felt its warmth. A soothing warm feeling then flowed into his body, and calming him. He inhaled in surprise as the light seemed to raise its head mass and brush under his eyes, as if it was licking his falling tears away, and call to him softly._

"_Veee…"_

_The light snuggled deeper into his arms, his eyes in a dazed and stunned stare at it for a moment. Then he looked up again to see Iruka, Kakashi, Old Man Hokage, Sakura, and Sasuke were still standing before him, but now were in the forms of he knew of them today, their soft smiles, or smirk from Sasuke, still inviting him. The ignorant backs of the others were replaced by a beautiful sunrise on the horizon. He looked back up to Iruka, smiled, then closed his eyes, tighten his embrace on the light, and stepped forward as he listened to the heartbeat matching his own._

XXX*End*XXX

Naruto squinted when a bright light landed on his eyes. Groggily, he peeked one eye open to see his window shining sunlight through. Groaning, not wanting to really leave the warmth in his arms, he sat up, stretched and yawned loud. After a moment of just half spacing out he got out of the bed and walked/stretched his legs to his enclosed toilet.

Sighing he took off his nightcap, washed his hands, took up his toothbrush, squeezed out some toothpaste and started brushing his teeth. While brushing he went through on what he should do today. Old Man gave him and his team the week off so he can't go on missions, he could just train himself, but he'd get bored with just himself and his clones, or maybe he could go to Ichiraku and tell Ayame-nee-chan and old man Ichiraku about the Wave mission, or he could shop and then clean his apartment. He shuddered at that, he hated cleaning. Maybe he should fix and sharpen his tools, they maybe hand me downs from Iruka, but he had to keep them functional since they were the only ones he had. Or He could show Iruka-sensei the cool looking egg on his bed or better yet show it to Sakura; it looks pretty and girls did like pretty stuff, right? He probably should wrap it up to keep it warm so it doesn't…catch…

Naruto blinked at his reflection in the mirror.

'Wait a minute…What egg?'

Wide eyed and still holding his toothbrush bristle head in his mouth, he slowly turned back to his bed, and there he stilled at what he saw. An egg the size of a soccer ball, its shell was a color of a light dark brown with a beige-ish zigzag color around the middle.

After a moment his fluoride foam filled mouth popped open and his toothbrush fell to the floor.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

* * *

YAWN!

Sakura covered her mouth to save from being embarrassed from yawning open mouthed, as she walked toward the Hokage Tower.

"Sigh, I thought we had the rest of the week off," she grumbled sleepily focusing ahead as venders were opening their stalls along the street.

After reaching home and taking a much needed shower, Sakura just landed on her bed, intent on sleeping in then repair her gear and reorganize her weapons stock when she goes back to training; She even thought of hunting down Ino-pig and rub in her face of her first successful mission with Sasuke-kun. Ino would be so jealous, though of course she would skip the 'Sasuke-kun nearly getting killed' part.

Twice, including their encounter with that creature.

'What did Naruto call it, 'Suicune'? Yes, that's it.'

The mission and encounter had flowed within her dreams of the fear and sadness on the bridge to the feeling of awe and curiosity of the creature throughout the night. Yet, the next morning her mother had come in her room saying that an ANBU came to the door and she was summoned back to the Hokage Tower immediately. At first she was grumpy for not sleeping more, but she thought better of it, for it might be important. So she was dressed and fixed herself up and headed back to the tower. She had wondered what happened to have her come: Was there a threat to the village (Unlikely since the team were still inexperienced genin), Naruto may have done something stupid and/or dangerous (It was probable but she hoped not), or Sasuke-kun could be in serious trouble (She really hoped not).

Down the hall toward the main office she spotted both Sasuke and Iruka by the door. Iruka looked up and greeted her.

"Good morning Sakura."

"Good morning Sensei, are you here to see the Hokage too?"

He nodded his head. "Yes, I got called in by an ANBU this morning."

Sakura's eyes widened. "You too?" She looked to her raven haired teammate. 'Did Sasuke-kun get call here as well?'

Sasuke nodded his head to her. "Have any idea why we're here?"

"No and so early."

Iruka stepped up to the oaken office door. "It must be important to the Hokage."

"Should we wait for Naruto?"

"He might be here already, waiting for us."

"Or 'he' is the cause," muttered Sasuke, but it was so soft only Sakura heard it. She had a sinking feeling that he might be right but with the Hokage it could be anything.

Just before Iruka could knock, the door opened and a familiar gray gravity defying hair and mask leaned out; startling Iruka and Sakura a bit.

"Good, you're here. You best come in," said Kakashi.

Sakura blinked a bit and Sasuke narrowed his eyes slightly, that was odd, that wasn't Kakashi's usual lazy tone, the tone of his voice sounded more serious as if he was on a mission. They looked at each other then followed a confused Iruka into the office to a sight that made Sakura almost do a double take.

The blinds of the windows were closed but the lights were on, on the desk the Hokage's hat rested on the table top, while the Hokage himself stood next to a chair, looking worriedly at its occupant. The blonde hair and orange jumpsuit they recognized him as Naruto sat in the chair in a way that made Sakura more worried. The blonde sat in a slight curl around an object covered in a blanket in his arms he wrapped tightly to him, his face had a nervous worried look, like was going into shock.

What was going on?

The old leader looked up and gave the new arrivals a slight smile. "Good morning, I apologize for summoning you all so early on your day off, but it appears Naruto here…" he patted Naruto's shoulder. "Has something very important, he says, to tell us and apparently show us."

'So even Hokage-sama and Kakashi-sensei don't know,' thought Sakura.

Naruto looked up at them and gave them that smile of his but this one was more forced. "Hi guys, sorry about getting you called in like this."

Iruka walked up to him and looked at him worriedly. "Naruto what do you have to show us?"

Taking a breath the orange clad boy unwrapped the blanket and revealed the colored egg. At first the audience present blinked at it, noticing its size and color. It didn't look like it was radioactive or something but why was Naruto showing them this. Sasuke, with a grumpy annoyed scowl, looked unimpressed and expressed it dryly.

"It's an egg, dobe."

Naruto scowled back. "I know it's an egg, teme, but look at it!" He held it out toward them. "It's huge and colored, does this look like any normal egg to you?"

Iruka gently took the egg from him and looked at it carefully at it while Kakashi questioned Naruto.

"Where did you come across it?"

Looking at the masked Jonin, Naruto explained, "After I woke up from this strange dream, I did my morning routine, thinking about what I could do when I saw it on my bed. It came out of nowhere!"

Laughter could be seen in Kakashi's eye-smile. "Well Naruto, you must have laid an egg apparently."

Turning red with embarrassment and anger Naruto sputtered at him, "I ain't a chicken in any form, mentally and/or physically!"

Sasuke smirked, "You sure about that?"

"This ain't about that, you jerk! This is serious!"

Sakura stepped in between them, "Hey you two stop it!"

Sarutobi raised his hand to them as he sat into his desk chair, "Naruto calm down. Now think for a moment, did anything in your apartment look different than from before you went to bed?"

Naruto looked thoughtful with his familiar thinking pose. "Not really only…" he opened his eyes. "Only my window was open when it was closed when I got home."

"So maybe someone must be playing a prank on you? You know to get back at you?" There was laughter in the old man's eyes. Naruto sputtered indignantly, as if insulted.

"What? Prank the king the pranks, not likely! Besides I don't use live props for my pranks," he crossed his arms and jetted out his chin comically. "It goes against the 'Prankster Code' and I quote, 'The use of live delicate props of any prank will be considered inhumane, immoral, and shall dishonor your status as prankster', unquote."

'There's a code for pranksters?' All in the room looked at the blonde with a sweatdrop.

"…You know what 'quote' means, dobe?" That Sasuke, the seeker of trivial knowledge.

"Will you quit making fun of my intelligence, you asshole!"

"Naruto! Mind your language in front of the Hokage!" Is that Iruka or Sakura or both?

"You know 'intelligence' too?"

Sakura and Kakashi struggled to keep Naruto in his chair from letting him throttle the smirking Uchiha. Silently enjoying the active scene than his quiet paper signing Saurtobi took out his smoking pipe and leaned into his chair and looked to the strange egg in Iruka's hands. He had a hard look at it, almost expecting it to move, but… no, the scenario was too convenient. First, an encounter with a 'Suicune' yesterday by team 7, and now today an egg in Naruto's bed. Why now? Why here outside the village and with Naruto's team or is it just Naruto? Was there a purpose for all of it? 'Or maybe I'm getting ahead of myself; this egg may not be real or connected to yesterday.'

Iruka calmed Naruto so he could get a say to the blonde, "Now, I don't understand Naruto." He held up the egg to his chest. "Are you sure this _is _a live egg? It could be just be a wooden one with a hollow opening to make you think it's real."

Surprisingly Naruto just sat back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest and looked to his old sensei with a serious look.

"Listen," he said.

Iruka looked at him confused, wasn't he already listening? Naruto shook his head, "No, I mean listen there." He pointed to the egg. Iruka looked to the Hokage, who just gestured him to listen. He took up the egg to his ear, then closed his eyes and pressed it to his ear as the others watched curiously. Iruka had thought he would expect nothing when…

_Tha-thump…_

_Tha-thump…_

_Tha—_

His eyes widen and he stood still for a moment. Shocked he looked to Naruto with his mouth slightly open. Naruto just looked at him with an 'I told you so' look at him.

"Kakashi," Iruka called to the gray haired jonin beside the desk. When the masked jonin came up to Iruka he held the egg to him, never taking his eyes off Naruto. "Tell me what you hear; your ears are better than mine."

The other two genins and Hokage watch curiously as Kakashi took the egg and pressed it to his ear. As Iruka praised, the jonin's ears tuned out all outside sounds and even his own heartbeat and listened to the surprising warm egg to hear…

_Tha-thump…_

_Tha-thump…_

_Scritch, scritch._

"Well, there's defiantly something in here," Kakashi replied coolly to keep his own surprise down. Sakura inhaled sharply, Sasuke narrowed his eyes and Naruto nodded his head in confident agreement as Sarutobi sat up straighter in his chair.

"Could it be dangerous to the village?"

Kakashi gave the egg back to Naruto. "Well, that I don't know what animal it came from." He eye-smiled at Naruto. "We can certainly rule chicken out."

The blonde growled and stuck his tongue out at him.

"We probably should get an expert. It could be an endangered or extinct species," voiced Sakura.

Sarutobi looked back at the egg once more, thinking hard and remembering a time he may have seen something similar to it but he had to listen to all options at what it could be and what it may be. He then reached to his intercom on his desk.

"That would be best," he pressed the button. "Mikazu-san."

*"Yes, Hokage-sama?"*

"Could you summon Hana Inuzuka to my office please?"

*"Right away, sir."*

He released the button then looked back to the others. "For now we'll just keep watch of it…" he paused then smiled at the only blonde in the room. "No, Naruto will keep watch of it."

Blue eyes widen at the old man. "Wait a minute, ME!" He jumped up out of the chair, still holding the egg in a careful grip, and faced the wizened leader. "But I can't jiji. I'll busy with team missions and training and-"

"You have a week off from all that and I'm sure by the time you do go back on duty we'll have worked something out."

"What about Sakura or Sasuke? Can't they take care of it?"

"You found it dobe, you take care of it," said Sasuke.

"Lazy," mumbled Naruto as he scowled at his rival.

"He's not lazy, Naruto," chided Sakura, and then offered with a smile. "But if you need help and/or advice you can ask me."

Stars shined in Naruto's eyes. "Thank you Sakura-chan!"

"Think of this as another challenge for you," suggested the Hokage, the blonde blinked at him. "Remember how the last one worked out for you?"

Naruto looked down at the egg a moment, letting it all sink in. Then a warm hand landed on his shoulder to make to make him look up, as Iruka whispered in his ear so that only Naruto could hear him; despite the other highly trained ears in the room.

"Naruto, haven't you ever wondered what it would be like to take care of another life besides your own?"

He blinked and stared at the kind smile of his old teacher. He never thought of that before. All his life he had been alone, sure he had Hokage-jiji provide things for him and visited him from time to time and he had Iruka-sensei to eat with after classes. Sometimes he would hang out with some of his classmates to play pranks, skip class, sleep through class or eat hidden food from the teacher. Yet, after all of it in the end of the day he would always find himself walking to his apartment alone, he would open the door and greet an "I'm home!" into the room but he never had a reply back to him, just silence. That was the main routine for him since he could remember, and at the time or two it became unbearable, but he pulled through even after finding out the real reason for being alone. Everything he did was all done by himself, yet…He always finds himself looking at others who have someone dear to them, laugh with them, and can greet them home; animal and/or human.

Now thinking of what the old man and Iruka-sensei implied, he started to smile, small but truly genuine, and embraced the egg slightly. No matter what came out of it, a bird or freaky lizard, they had each other now. His thoughts and actions took only a few moments in real time, before he faced the Hokage and gave a face of pure determination and excitement.

"Don't worry Hokage-jiji, I promise I'll take care for whatever this comes out as," he exclaims with his trademark grin, but Sarutobi saw this as more heartfelt. "I won't break my promises, that's my nindo. Believe it!"

* * *

Sharp amethyst eyes open slowly and look forward from its position. It's voice resonating in the air.

:: At long last, it begins. :: A blue glow surrounds it. :: Awaken. ::

* * *

_Tha-thump…_

A heartbeat beats into his body…

He stills and inhales sharply at the sudden vibration…

'What was that…suddenly my heart…' His eyes widen. 'The seal… it acting weird again…Just like when Suicune and I did that stare off back then…What's-'

"That's good to hear Naruto," said that Hokage as if he didn't notice Naruto's sudden change of behavior. Naruto blinked, maybe it was just him. "Now we'll see if we can get someone-"

**Crack!**

All eyes went to the egg in Naruto's hands…

A crack had appeared on the top of the shell…

Silence…

Then…

"Idiot," sighed Sasuke.

"Naruto!" Sakura groaned. "Not even a minute into this and already you break it!"

The blonde was frantic. "But! But! I didn't! AH!" He exclaimed when the egg shook in his hands.

Kakashi's hand stopped Sakura's advance to make her look at him and noticed he had an intent stare on the egg, so did Sasuke, Iruka, and the Hokage.

"Sakura I don't think Naruto did anything," his eye narrowed when another crack appeared, surprising his blonde student. "I believe it's…"

"…hatching," finished Sasuke.

Then to the shock of all the egg glowed a bright white light, lightening around the office. Sasuke moved in front of Sakura, she would've swooned at this but she was focusing on the light. Kakashi had moved in front of the Hokage in case of anything, while Iruka stood close to Naruto as they both watched in awe as the light shifted from its egg shape to a new form. The light formed a mass with four legs, a bushy tail in the back, a mane of sorts around its neck, then on its head two long ears shot up. Feeling its warmth, Naruto then felt a familiar feeling like he had the night before.

'Just like in my dream,' he thought. 'It's the same.'

Then the light started to fade and everyone looked closely at the details of the newly hatched creature. It was no bigger than a cat. Its main color was a light brown that covered its body, head, legs, and tail, with a cream colored tip at the end. Its mane was a collar of cream colored fur, its rounded face had a small muzzle with a tiny black nose, and its eyes still closed. Naruto watched as the newly 'hatched' creature slowly blink its eyes open to his azure ones. He stared back at the big glossy dark brown and they stared back at him for some time, not acknowledging on anything but themselves. The creature then smiled, shocking the blonde, and then cried a greeting to him.

"Vee!"

The moment was ruined by a girl's great weakness.

"SO CUTE!" exclaimed Sakura, with hearts in her eyes.

Her shout surprised everyone in the room, but the creature's reaction was the worst. Its body froze for a second, its eyes wide and tail rigid, then it cried out with an "Eee!" and jumped into the closest safe it saw, Naruto's open collared jacket. It jumped from the blonde's hands and through the loose opening of his neck hem and into the torso area. Startled, Naruto exclaimed, waving his arms and legs around and giggled as the creature burrowed deeper into his jacket.

"Hey! AHH! Hee, hee! Get out! HAHA! Get it out! Hee, Hee! Help!"

Iruka tried to get to Naruto when the blonde fell off balance onto the floor, groaned from the pain, then sighed in relief when the burrowing stopped, but he could feel it shaking a bit.

At first the audience looked on in shock, amusement, and some embarrassment through the whole incident, then Kakashi stepped up to an embarrassed Sakura and whispered in her ear.

"I think we'll need to work on your impulse control, Sakura."

She blushed and looked to Naruto. "Sorry, Naruto." ***Oh now Sasuke will think I'm a total loser.*** She looked to the raven but he was focusing on the lump in the jacket as the blonde weakly smiled.

"I'm fine." He looked down to the shivering bulge on his belly as it moved to hide under his arm. At first he didn't know how to approach this, with his past experience with an unknown animal. Then he opened up his jacket a bit, just enough for him to see the creatures head. He spoke softly, "Hey, it okay… Sakura-chan didn't mean to scare you." It didn't move. "Come on, it's alright, no one is going to hurt you." It peeked out a dark brown eye up at him as he smiled. "There you are, see we're not really scary… except maybe Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke."

"Oi," Kakashi whined lazily.

"Hn."

It fully looked up and Naruto lowered the zipper to reveal the creature to the rest of the audience. It looked out to see Iruka close by as he looked at it with an awed smile, Sakura smiled at it with a blush and her folded hands cradled her head, Sasuke and Kakashi did look scary but not that much, then it looked to the man behind the desk and at first he would look scary but his aura wasn't threatening; he looked like he was thinking deeply in his stare. No longer feeling threatened it climbed out of the jacket into Naruto's arms, as the blonde stood up, and greeted them with a smile.

"Eee!"

"Remarkable," breathed Iruka as he stood close to get a good look. It looked to him as Naruto patted its head to reassure it, then its head reached for Iruka's hand to let him pet it, it cooed as he scratched its ear.

"Aww," voiced Sakura as she walked over with Sasuke and Kakashi following up behind her. "So adorable, where did it come from?"

"From the egg apparently," said Kakashi, watching her scratch its chin. "But correct me if I'm wrong, while it is cute… It's not a bird or reptile and last time I checked warm blooded animals don't hatch from eggs."

"They don't," answered Sasuke.

"Then what about this one?"

The intercom buzzed, making everyone flinch, were they all really that shocked to not notice things around them? The creature tilled its head toward where the sound came from, as the Hokage pressed the receiving button.

"Yes, Mikazu?"

*"Hokage-sama, Hana Inuzuka is here."*

"Thank you, send her in," he replied then addressed the rest. "We'll just let our 'expert' help us find out."

* * *

"So…this cutie really came from an egg?"

Hana Iunzuka was considered a talented young woman and ninja from her clan and she exceeded more into the veterinary care for the village since she became a genin. The tall, slender, and fierce looking brunette showed that she was a proud Inuzuka with her red fang marks on her cheeks, but when with her furry, feathery, and scaly patients she showed a more caring side to encourage their health rate. Her skills were highly recognized in the shinobi community as she treated nin-dogs, messenger hawks, and even toads with 'toothaches', but when the Hokage's summons her to give an opinion on a new animal species a genin team found she never expected anything like this.

An exam table was brought for Hana in the office so she could examine this creature closely and check for any physical deformities and its health. The three genin were close by with Naruto just across the table to help Hana hold the creature the way she told him to. Iruka stood by the door so no one would enter unexpectently, while Kakashi had taken up his little orange book and leaned against the Hokage's desk, but he wasn't truly reading it. Due to pressure from his secretary the Hokage had to file and stamp his paperwork while they all waited for the exam to finish. Sarutobi was classifying this event as an A-class secret due to connecting circumstances until further events decide otherwise. So only for now everyone present in the office knew of this new 'arrival', so Hana was honored with being the official vet. She checked the creature's legs and paws, and when she felt the underbelly, the little brown muzzle gave cries that sounded like giggles; Naruto spoke over them trying to keep hold of it.

"Eeee! Vee…ee…eee!"

"Yeah, first the egg cracked, then this," he motioned his head to the giggling mass. "Came out in a ray of light. Is that normal?"

"Of course it isn't," commented Hana as she looked into the creature's mouth, noticing it already had a set of teeth. "But this isn't exactly a normal animal." She closed its mouth, looked into its eyes and smiled. "But you are cute!"

"Eee!" cooed the creature with a smile.

'Guess it sticks with age,' thought Naruto with a sweatdrop remembering Sakura's outburst earlier.

"So this is probably a new species?" asked Iruka.

"Maybe, I haven't gone through all the scrolls and books about every known animal in the nations. I'm still learning."

"Take all your time Hana-san," voiced the Hokage as he finished a paper stack then went up to his file cabinet. "I'm sure we'll find an answer."

"Right," she sighed then straightened up and patted the small head. "Well, I'm finished. There are no signs of any physical abnormalities on the body and no parasites or diseases external or internal, so all in all she's in perfect health."

"Vee!" it cried happily as it was released from the table, then proceeded to hop around the floor. Naruto looked up at Hana with an eyebrow raised.

"'She'?"

Hana nodded "Yep, it's a girl."

"How can you tell?" STOMP! GRIND! "OW!"

Sakura continued to grind her heel into his foot. "Honestly Naruto! You have no tact what so ever!"

"What? What'd I say? OW! It was a simple question! OW!"

The rest just shook their heads and sighed at the scene, the creature just looked around at everything curiously, while the Hokage had returned to his desk with a form in his hand.

"Well now that we know its gender, that should make things easier," he looked to Naruto, who was crying tears of pain. "Naruto, could you come here please?" He smiled as the blonde limped over, but it wasn't because of that, he smiled as the little brown creature tailed behind the orange-clad boy, then he reached over to give Naruto the form. "Just fill this out."

Curiously Naruto looked over the form in his hands, while felt the creature rubbed against his leg like a cat. He blushed in embarrassment when he heard the girls giggle and the two men and rival snicker, however he felt warm at its attention toward him, but he just looked up back at the old man.

"What's this?"

"It's a form that will recognize that you, Naruto Uzumaki, are the sole provider and caretaker to this little creature and to register her as a part of your team. So Kakashi, you'll have to sign it too."

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

"So…" Naruto looked down at the creature as it leaned on his leg. "I'll be its-her owner?" For some reason that didn't sound right to him.

"More like a guardian and caretaker, like taking in an Inuzuka puppy, while we still will keep this event an A-class secret you are the one it saw first and coincidently," he paused to look down at the creature by the orange clad legs like an obediently puppy. "'She' now has imprinted on you and believes you are her parent."

"That means you're a 'Momma', Naruto," Kakashi eye-smiled and padded the boy's shoulder. Everyone either giggled or chuckled as the red faced blonde sputtered and turned to the Cyclops jonin with a raised fist.

"You'll cry for yours in a second you—mft!" a gloved hand covered his mouth.

"Careful Naruto," the mask had the gull to smirk as he wiggled a finger back and forth, then pointed down. "There's a 'baby' in the room."

Muffed words, a twitching eyebrow, and angry eyes were his answer.

Then Naruto felt a tug on his pant leg, he swatted the eye-smiling man's hand away to look down and blink. The brown creature was tugging at the fabric with her teeth to gain his attention, then when he looked at her she started rubbing against his leg and stood on her hind legs to look at him. Her ears were folded against her head as she looked pitifully at him with her glossy eyes and give a pleading cry that caused a flinch in his heart.

"Eeee…"

'So cute!' thought the girls in the room.

Naruto looked confused as he kneeled down, "Hey, what's wrong? You hurt?"

"Veee…" Her eyes just stared back, when a soft rumble was heard.

"Hmm," Hana looked thoughtful for a moment. "Has she been fed since she…'hatched'?"

"Gasp, No she hasn't," answered Sakura.

"So she must be hungry," voiced Iruka.

"Oh," Naruto looked back to the pleading creature and rubbed the back of his neck. "What does she eat?"

"That we don't know," explained Hana. "Remember this is a new animal even to me. Normally warm blooded animal newborns feed on milk but this one already has a full set of teeth that's like an omnivore."

"'Omni'-what?"

"'Omnivores' are the animals that can eat both plants and animals," explained Sakura. "We humans are omnivores too."

Naruto thought for moment then sighted his pack by his chair. "Oh! I still have some of those chestnuts left," he looked to Hana. "Are those okay?"

"I suppose. I'll see if I have any milk formula, just in case."

Sasuke, throughout it all, watched closely in his own musings of the event. He was still not over realizing he still had a lack of power to beat that hunter-nin in wave, then against that creature in the clearing and its power, and now…this really threw him for a loop. Why would someone send an egg of unknown origin to his blonde teammate? It was confusing and was starting to give him a headache. He was brought out of his thoughts when Naruto opened his pack; Sasuke was leaning against a file cabinet next Naruto's chair. The blonde dug into the pack and brought out a bag of his chestnuts, but then Naruto pulled out something that caught Sasuke's attention…

A familiar yellow and blue book.

He narrowed his eyes at the sight of it. 'Could it be…?'

Naruto just placed the book back, without much notice, and proceeded to crack some of the nuts then gave them to the little brown creature. She sniffed at the nut at first then cried happily and started to munch on it.

"Hey! She likes them."

"Good, now Naruto," called the Hokage. "Let's get this form filled out, so you could start adjusting with your new…friend." He liked the sound of that.

Naruto wrote the information needed as the others gathered around the creature eating happily, minus Kakashi, who took up his book again, and Sasuke, who no one noticed going for Naruto's pack. Soon Naruto paused at a section and frowned.

'Name of charge? _?'

Well, the creature was a girl so that narrowed name choices dawn but not enough since he, being a boy, couldn't think of a good one. He turned to Sakura, who placed a bowl of formula milk Hana made beside the eating furball. "Hey, Sakura do you have any idea's for names? I can't think of one."

Sakura looked thoughtful for a second. "Well how about…'Cutie'," she smiled at the creature. "Since she is a cutie."

"I agree," smiled Hana.

Naruto frowned. "No way that's too girly."

"You asked."

The orange book lowered for Kakashi to give his suggestion. "I have good one." They didn't like that particular eye-smile. Sakura's eye twitched.

"It better not be from that book," she growled.

The book covered his face again. "It was just an idea."

'Ero-baka!', thought his team.

"Maybe something from her features could give a name," said Iruka as pet the small brown head and smiled when those glossy dark brown eyes looked up at him. "She has beautiful eyes, so how about 'Hitomi'? It means 'lovely eyes'?"

Then the creature looked like she made a sour face and shook her head.

"Eee!"

"I don't think she likes it," grinned Naruto.

"How can you know that?" said Sakura then gave the creature another nut. "You can't understand her."

That caused Naruto to pause. She was right, the creature just came into this world and already it was looking like it aged in months rather than an hour. Yet, somehow he could feel something from the little brown furball, though no words were exchanged he just felt that whenever she cried out or moved a curtain way he knew what she was saying in her own way. 'That's a bit creepy.' Why was this all happening now? It was a bit overwhelming. He looked back at the scene of Hana and Sakura feeding the brown mouth, his two sensei's watching them, and Sasuke opening his pack…wait…

Naruto jumped and pointed angrily at his raven haired rival. "Hey! Sasuke! Hand's off the pack, you thief!"

The others looked to the high collared prodigy as he took out a familiar book, to all but Hana and the creature, from the pack.

"Don't freak dobe. I just have a hunch."

"What hunch Sasuke-kun?" asked Sakura.

Pitch black eyes glanced at them as Sasuke flipped through the pages. "Don't you think this is all too convenient to what happened yesterday? That blue creature then and this one now?"

"What crea-" asked Hana curiously, then her eyes widen a bit. "There was another?"

The Hokage raised his hand to silence her. "All will be explained later Hana-san, but please listen for now."

When she reluctantly nodded, Kakashi put his book back in his pouch to look at Sasuke. "This creature is nothing like the one from then, Sasuke. There's no possible way that they could be relevant and/or related."

Sasuke just continued flipping the pages of the book as Kakashi talked, his gifted eyes skimmed at the various creatures of every size, color, and some look ferocious while some would make anyone smile. Then he saw the page he was searching for. He narrowed his eyes, then sighed and turned to the curious group. He opened the book to them from them to see the page. The widened eyes and gasps came as he expected.

"Then how do you explained this?"

It was like looking at a mirror of oil and brush paint.

"No way!" gasped Sakura. "It's the same."

Naruto looked at the opened page of the book to the exact image in disbelief. It couldn't be just a coincidence, but there it was, the identity of this…'Pokémon'.

Hana strode forward to the Uchiha. "Let me see that?"

"This is starting to be overwhelming," sighed Iruka, who pinched the bridge of his nose. Kakashi looked more seriously at the creature as it finished the milk in the bowl, not noticing the sudden tension. Satisfied with the meal she turned around to find her master sitting on a chair not too far away and happily hopped up to his lap, startling him, and contently laid there. Naruto looked surprisingly at the crea-…no…he looked to the book Hana was now reading…the…

"'Eevee', the evolution Pokémon. This playful, cheerful Pokémon is said to be the only one of its kind to evolve into numerous advanced forms depending on items used, environments, and/or situations of extreme emotions…example Eevee can use a water evolution stone to evolve into Vaporeon? 'Pokémon', 'evolution stone'?" She looked over to the Hokage, who looked like he was having a migraine. "Just what is all this?"

The Saidaime just sighed, taking this all in as his aging mind worked the situation over. 'This confirms it.' "All will be explained. Now Naruto," he addressed the blonde, but he was surprised to find that the blonde was staring at the 'Eevee' quietly, just staring at the happy features like she was the most precious thing in the world. The old man didn't want to ruin their moment but… "Naruto," he called again, the blonde flinched his head up. "We have all day to think things through but let's start with a name." He pushed the form to him.

"Oh, right," Naruto took up the pen again and thought. So this…Eevee…was a girl, its name itself was just the name of her species so he can't use it, he didn't know any good girl names, and she likes nuts. He paused… 'No, she likes chestnuts.' He looked down at the brown mass on his lap, then to his pack and saw one chestnut left and noticed the similarities to them for they had the same color, even the collar around the head. Then it came to him.

"'Kuri'."

Everyone looked to him in surprised silence. He had serene smile on his face, he spoke softly, and his eyes never left the little Eevee's, who looked back at him with a curious tilted head.

"Her name should be 'Kuri'," he grinned big. "She looks like what she eats."

For a moment silence, as if she was registering the name, then she gave a happy smile and cry at him.

"Vee!"

"You like that huh? Hi Kuri great to meet ya. I'm Naruto Uzumaki, future Hokage!"

* * *

He watched them from his window; his hands behind his back. It was after noon when the sound of Naruto's stomach had given them the break they needed from learning more from Naruto's Pikapedia book. So it was decided that Naruto and Sakura would go with Hana to get the supplies needed to take care of little Kuri, he like the sound of that, while Kakashi peeled off to write the report about the event. Sasuke on the other hand had left to his family compound, saying he would make his own research. Iruka would meet up with later for his shift of mission dispatches, after he treated his headache; the situation got a bit overwhelming for him, but he'll catch up with Naruto about it later. As for Naruto himself… The old leader was surprised at how quickly the boy took to having the little creature in his life so suddenly, but he knew deep inside that the boy was thinking the same thoughts he was: why now, why here, and why the blonde specifically? Yet, for now Naruto look truly happy and Sarutobi would leave it at that. Now, with Kuri registered and the report being made, he'll have to tell the council.

Hiruzen groaned, he really didn't want to involve them, they'll surely try everything to either have Kuri taken away to be killed, dissected, or, his face darkened, Danzo could use her for whatever he had in his methods. And there's no telling how it will affect Naruto, the boy would be devastated and what if the… He shook his head, 'No, the seal and the boy's will are strong, they'll hold out.' Still he had read the Wave report and it concerned him. 'I'll see if I can get Jiraiya to look at it.'

He looked back down and chuckled at the sight of Naruto's group, Naruto trying to look inconspicuous was funny. You see, before they left he reminded them that Kuri was supposed to be top secret, so they couldn't go walking around the village with an unknown creature in the open. Naruto's pack would have been ideal, however Kuri didn't like the dark space, yet she found the perfect place to hide right by her master; she'd hid behind his neck and under his jacket neck lining. Now the blonde was trying to walk like he didn't look like a hunchback, he had a dark red blush as he and the girls left.

Sarutobi flopped back in his comfy swivel chair and sighed, knowing this event was just the beginning of something more than he could comprehend. His headache would double with that and his increased paperwork.

But first he must deal with his present company.

"I must say again that 'that boy is going to wear me out' for he keeps bringing more and more surprising trouble good and bad," he sighed again, keeping his visual on his beloved village a little longer before turning in his chair to face his hooded visitor.

"But all going according to your plan, right?"

* * *

A/N: And there you have it. Next time: Naruto is starting to have second thoughts? How will he and little Kuri adjust to each other and their team? Who is the Hokage's visitor an enemy or an unlikly ally? Find out in: "Welcome Home"

"Kuri" really means chestnut, and "Hitomi" was the only name I could find in relation to her eyes, so any fluents of the language please bare with me. Thank you.


End file.
